I saw The Gaslight Anthem for the first time at Reading Festival in 2008 after the eruption of the buzz surrounding ‘The 59 Sound’, it came around the same time I had fully listened to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska’ and it made perfect sense to fall in love with this band. Brian Fallon (Main Vocalist) embraced the similarity to his idol, covering his work and even jumping at the chance to bring him out at a now famous Glastonbury performance. I saw TGA 3 times from 2008-2010 and each time Fallon and the rest of the band looked comfortable with the success they had amassed and the comparisons that came their way, they looked genuinely thankful and blessed to be doing what they loved. Then last year Fallon released a succinct rant at how his band was portrayed and not being able to do the things that many of the fans came to see him do, such as a favourite cover or bring out a special guest. Many people were split as they thought that if the band didn’t want to draw these comparisons then they shouldn’t cover Pearl Jam’s ‘State of Love and Trust’ or repeatedly reference Tom Petty or Joe Strummer in their songs. However to me this was a message of a man who had become increasingly tired by the journalistic questions and wanted to pave his own path and have his own voice rather than be seen as a pale imitation of his heroes. The often cheery Brian Fallon (Vox, Guitar), underrated Alex Rosamilla (Lead Guitar) mischievous Benny Horrowitz (drums) and nonchalant Alex Levine (bass guitar) took a step back from the limelight, went away to write and record and have returned with the most complete album of their career.
The album starts with a proper message of intent in the single ‘Stay Vicious’ which makes the casual transaction from face-melting riffs to a sort of Iggy Pop ‘Passenger’ chorus of ‘La’s’ and is a decent start to the album but the next track in ‘1,000 Years’ completely blows it out the water. When you hear a song by a band 5 albums into their career that you would instantly put into their Greatest Hits you know you have a serious track on your hands. It seems like a perfect marriage of the heavy punches of Handwritten and the pop-rock quality that shined on American Slang, a lot of TGA best songs are ‘growers’ but this track immediately draws you into a multifaceted and powerful record. On this track Brian Fallon shows how much more of an accomplished and confident vocalist he has become over the years. Throughout the album his vocal delivery is the best it’s ever been, and his time with his side-project in The Horrible Crowes has evidently helped the band. It’s his pronunciation and slow articulation of words such as baby on ‘Get Hurt’ and his soft speech on ‘Underneath The Ground’ which really adds another element to every song which you discover initially and over time. The vocalist who is the most accomplished at this is The Boss himself and although the album sounds like a departure from The E Street Band’s sound and he wants an end to the comparisons, it is one of the biggest compliments you could give to any vocalist.
Fallon usually takes most of the band’s attention but Alex Rosamilla (Lead Guitar) has never sounded better as you can strangely hear his ‘The Cure’ and ‘The Displacements’ inspiration in equal measure. On ‘Get Hurt’ you can listen to the inner personal battle weather to make intricate licks of ‘Selected Poems’ or the bold forceful riffs evident in ‘Rolling and Tumblin’. He has seemed to improve the most from Sink or Swim to the punky Stadium Rock they are producing today, I’m sure touring with Mike Mcready (Pearl Jam) hasn’t done him any harm.
One of my favourite things about The Gaslight Anthem which has become apparent from being a fan of the last 6 years is that album tracks like Red Violins which didn’t click on first listen have a good chance of being one of my favourite on the record. ‘Ain’t A Shame’ seems a bit filler though but is followed by ‘Break Your Heart’ which follows the formula of my favourite TGA song in ‘Blue Jeans and White T Shirts’ which has Fallon’s croaky vocals rest upon an acoustic guitar and some neat engineering work. Brian Fallon came out recently saying they wanted to explore different sounds and having the sound engineer being The 1975’s self-titled album seems to have created a larger and more polished sound whilst allowing some experimentation.
The band came out in December 2012 and said
‘I want to do the No Code record, that one. They did these three rock records, and [then] they all of a sudden went left turn. And everybody went, ‘What the hell?’ Then later, five years, they went, ‘This is amazing.’
It was an interesting comment for the band to make, and the parallels between where Brian Fallon seems to be now and where Eddie Vedder was post-Vitalogy are similar but the position the bands are in and the music industry are very different. This album isn’t as much a far cry away from their previous sound as anticipated but rather a band becoming fully comfortable with who they are as artists and musicians and seemingly getting the monkey off their back when it comes to the fans wanting them to be different people. Sonically it is their strongest sounding and most complete album yet, and despite the immediate imagery of ‘Dark Places’ with the line ‘If I thought it would help, I would call your name into my heart’ the lyrics aren’t as powerful as ‘The 59 Sound’…yet. Though as I said earlier, The Gaslight Anthem are a band that makes a song that keeps giving and giving and at first the songs that appear to lack depth may appear to be the most poetic on the album. With first several listens it appears The Gaslight Anthem have made one of the best rock albums of 2014, and only time will tell if it will be as fondly regarded as ‘No Code’ is today.
KJ's Music 