“My past is my past and a lot of The Glass Passenger is about that,” says Jack’s Mannequin frontman Andrew McMahon, “but it’s also about trying to write myself out of it. This is a record about trying to get out from underneath something. I want people to receive the music for what it is and not have to contextualize it against my own personal battle.” That personal battle is the elephant in the room, so before we get to The Glass Passenger, the long-awaited second album from pop-rock balladeers Jack’s Mannequin, let’s shove the pachyderm out of the way so we can move on.

The story goes like this: After his hard-working punk-pop quintet Something Corporate decided to take a break, McMahon found himself writing a batch of confessional piano-driven songs that explored his return home to Orange County and his attempt to reconnect with the people he had alienated when he left to tour with Something Corporate. With the help of several musician friends, McMahon began recording Everything in Transit under the moniker Jack’s Mannequin.

In June 05, the day he finished mastering the last song, then 22-year-old McMahon was diagnosed with leukemia. He was forced to postpone all music-related activities and immediately
undergo chemotherapy, which led to a bout with pneumonia that nearly killed him. Two months later, on August 23rd, Maverick Records released the sardonic, sweetly melancholic Everything in Transit, which debuted at No. 37 on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart and was well-received by both fans and critics. After going into remission following a stem-cell transplant from his sister, McMahon was able to make a full recovery.

“The Glass Passenger is not about recovering from cancer,” McMahon says. “it’s just about recovering. I was trying to use the music to sort through and reconcile with the adversity of my past.” With music as his emotional release, McMahon was able to inject his songs with an uplifting positivity that engages everyone he meets. The album’s tone is set with the first single “The Resolution,” about accessing the positive, and continues through the moody, layered “Swim”, the feel-good sing-along “American Love,” and the propulsive “Spinning.” McMahon’s lush tenor voice and expressive piano playing underscore the lyrics’ unabashed honesty. But while it is essentially autobiographical, The Glass Passenger is not meant to be interpreted as a direct description of McMahon’s life, which is what makes it so universally powerful.