The Gaslight Anthem- American Slang (****)

Listeners have certain expectations of bands that hail from New Jersey.

For starters, they need to be “working class.” They need to represent the faction of American society that keeps themselves on the factory line while everyone else Tweets about it on their Blackberries. They need to embody the big rock n’ roll spirit, which often means leather jackets, tattoos, and guitars.

Oh, and they need vocals with grit. Always. It lets us know they’re serious.

It’s safe to blame Bruce Springsteen for all of this. Throughout his career, Springsteen has repped New Jersey, and by default the United States, at an almost jingoist level with his brand of rock music. Love him or hate him, he’s perfected the attitude and image that’s associated with the Jersey sound, a sound that’s meant for the heart and the gut.

Yet while countless bands have attempted to replicate that aesthetic, The Gaslight Anthem is the only one who seems ready to take that torch away from Springsteen and carry it themselves. This is evident from the very first notes of American Slang, an album predicated on exploring how the memories of our struggles shape our future, as well as the very idea of the American Dream itself.

Commendably, The Gaslight Anthem achieves such lofty ambitions with a lean album. American Slang flourishes with 10 tracks of lean, blues inspired, pop-punk set- against Brian Fallon’s gruff stories. It begins with the pounding drums of the album’s title track, a song that explodes with full bass and shimmering bends as Fallon declares, “Look what you started/I seem to be coming out of my skin/Look what you've forgotten here/The bandages just don't keep me in…”

All in all, the songs on American Slang hit listeners quickly, arriving fully formed with passionate urgency and tuneful sophistication. The band keeps rolling as Benny Horowitz’s snappy backbeat and Alex Levine’s fuzzy bass chug along like an old muscle car on “Stay Lucky.” Elsewhere, the late album cut “Boxer” benefits from a cold vocal opening before band breaks out into driving rhythms, smooth lead work, and relentless drumming.

Yet if there’s one marked difference in American Slang’s sound, it’s that the overall production quality seems a bit drier than the group’s previous effort. The instrumentation on The ‘59 Sound was soaked in layers of reverb that added to the disc’s dreamy feel, but on American Slang, they are decidedly bare bones. The music’s meat and potatoes is the energy that stems from the riffs, not the atmosphere that comes from the distortion. This results in an album focused on melody lines rather than spaciousness, but one that also plays to the group’s strength: Their ability to balance the contemplative with the catchy.

Because part of fronting a Jersey band is having a thoughtful lyricist, and Brian Fallon fills that role eloquently.

Against spidery lead guitar and thick rhythms, “Old Haunts” finds Fallon’s sandpapery vocals exploring the passage of time with lines such as, “Cherry bomb, your love is surgery/Removing what you don't regard/And every breath felt like a funeral, baby/While you were packing up your car…” He then turns his thoughts to shared struggle on the jazzy cut “The Diamond Church Street Choir,” finding solace in shared sorrow as he sings “Just, baby who sings the rhythm and the blues/So sad, so slow, so smooth/Like I do, like I do…” Granted, he’s not name checking Charles Dickens or Marilyn Monroe this go around, but his words channel a world weary tone that’s as thought provoking as it is romantic.

While the disc could stand to have a greater sense of dynamics, it’s clear that The Gaslight Anthem have found their voice three albums into their career. That’s a refreshing sign for any group, but an especially important one for a group from Jersey. It adds credibility to the craft, especially considering the scrutiny they’d receive otherwise.

Yet Fallon takes it a step further on American Slang. Because he uses his words to define the American Dream not only for the iGeneration, but also for those that struggled before him. He attempts to bridge those divided by age and eras, perhaps in the hopes if finding something universal about belonging to this nation.

The whole picture comes into focus on the haunting “We Did It When We Were Young,” a track that straddles the line between muted minimalism and crashing distortion. Amidst twinkling guitars, Fallon sings, “We were strangers/Many hours/And I missed you for so long/When we were lions/Lovers in combat/Faded like your name on those jeans that I burned…” as he recognizes lives lived and connected through small moments of intimacy, all in the face of adversity. It’s a beautiful sentiment. Fallon re-imagines the idea of the American Dream not as a measure of success, but as a reflection of how our passions have guided us through our lives.

He quantifies it not as something to uphold, but as something that’s felt, regardless of class or status.

All in all, that’s not bad for some guys from Jersey.

Key Cuts: American Slang, The Diamond Church Street Choir, Old Haunts

Sounds Like: Born To Run (Bruce Springsteen), The ’59 Sound (The Gaslight Anthem), A Flight & A Crash (Hot Water Music)

Click on the artwork to sample American Slang for yourself!

The Black Keys- Brothers (****)

This is the lead for a review of the new album by The Black Keys.

This review is for an album named Brothers, and the no-frills trapping of its album art, much like this lead, is unapologetic and straightforward. In essence, this review hitches its wagon to The Black Keys’ subtle sense of humor, but only because it works so well. In fact, guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney think it works so well that they’re hoping the directness of their album cover can focus their listeners in a very specific way.

They’re hoping you’ll forget about expecting a certain sound from them.

They’re hoping to cultivate a certain mindset with such a stark album cover, an album cover that quantifies what listeners are about to hear as well as dispelling extraneous images/notions surrounding the band. It’s a bold move to distance yourself from a musical identity you’ve worked so hard to achieve, but then again it’s also a calculated one. It’s also fair to say The Black Keys wouldn’t attempt it if they had mediocre songs.

Thankfully, Brothers is anything but mediocre.

A 15-track journey into the heart of roots blues, Brothers finds The Black Keys more obsessed with melody than ever before. And rather than slamming out big rock aggression in a basement, they’ve moved the party to the cemetery where the results are as spooky as they are soulful. It begins with the tense thump of “Everlasting Light,” where Auerbach’s singing twists into its highest register amidst sugary backing vocals. From there, The Black Keys enlist Danger Mouse to produce the lead off single “Tighten Up,” a bouncy mid-tempo number with fluttering fills, sharp upstrokes, and jaunt whistles.

What makes it all compelling, however, is that The Black Keys have been able to add subtly to their songs.

Carney’s drumming is still commanding, and Auerbach’s voice still grabs your attention, but they’ve been able to find different musical avenues to make their audiences ache alongside them. Even the one song that sounds closest to their previous material (the squealing and shuffling “She’s Long Gone”) subverts the traditional Black Keys battle plan by emphasizing fretwork rather than feedback.

In other words, they realized that the blues has a diverse offering to draw from, and you can’t always play with the amps cranked to 11.

This is the main reason the Keys decided to be coy with their cover: Brothers has thrown the blues-bashing-baby out with the bathwater. Instead, The Black Keys made an album focused on texture, replacing their stacks of crunchy distortion with warm bass, deep drums, and phaser soaked guitar lines. “Too Afraid To Love You” features Carney’s punchy hip-hop stomp alongside loopy bass work and nightmare inspire guitar sonics. Elsewhere, “Next Girl” retains the Keys’ signature vocal/guitar call and response, but with leads that envelope ear drums rather than sear them off. However, all this tunefulness hasn’t exactly made The Black Keys soft. The sludgy mire and soupy lead work on “Black Mud” proves Auerbach and Carney still know how the kick out a killer groove, even without the dissonant crunch.

Overall, such risks end up creating a murky and immersive experience, completing the molting process The Black Keys began on 2008’s Attack & Release. Additionally, this shift in their sound has allowed unique luxuries on Brothers, most noticeably, in their lyrical content.

On Brothers, Auerbach no longer seems tethered to the extreme ends of the emotional spectrum, often times doing away with his slash and burn catharsis in favor of earnest storytelling. “Ten Cent Pistol” is twisting revenge tale (“She hit/Him with/A ten cent pistol/Because/He ruined/Her name…”) while “Unknown Brother” explores a bond extending beyond the grave (“Though I never met you/And we spoke not a word/I’ll never forget you/From the stories that I’ve heard…”). All in all, Auerbach’s writing is in top form, engaging his listeners while paying homage to his blues heroes.

Still, spelling all that out might not be enough for some fans.

In fact, most fans are of the “talk is cheap” variety. They tend to be far more interested in whether or not a new album from The Black Keys will measure up their standards, rather than the band’s. They’ll be the first to point out how the front half of the disc is stock piled with the catchier numbers, and how the out of place funk on “Sinister Kid” just sounds goofy. They’ll bemoan that the Keys sold out, and that the only blues worth yammering about is their own as they cry for something louder.

But they’ll also be the ones missing the point, and the ones that the album cover aims to warn the most. Brothers has shown that Auerbach and Carney aren’t interested in catering to the public. Instead, they seem focused in pushing their sound to its utmost limits. Which means that sometimes, they cannot compromise their vision, even if that means scaling back on the grit just a smidge.

In that sense, it’s all the more fitting that The Black Keys titled their album Brothers. It’s their way of saying, “Love us for who we are, like brothers making decisions you aren’t comfortable with, or don’t love us at all.” It’s direct, and to the point, so you’ll focus on the important task of analyzing music made by The Black Keys.

If nothing else, that’s the reason this review of Brothers got written in the first place.

Key Cuts: Next Girl, She’s Long Gone, Too Afraid To Love You

Sounds Like: Modern Guilt (Beck), Attack & Release (The Black Keys), Sunday Nights: The Songs Of Junior Kimbrough (Junior Kimbrough)

Click on the artwork to sample Brothers for yourself!

Long & Extremely Overdue

Due to some pretty high profile leaks lately (Black Keys, Gaslight Anthem, I’m lookin’ at you!) here are two reviews I’d been meaning to write for a while. Hopefully, this is a reminder for me to keep a good pace as opposed to thinking I’ll get to this stuff later. Plus, it’ll free me up to dive right into those leaks, which at the moment, are sounding pretty darn stellar.

So here we go:

Coheed & Cambria- Year Of The Black Rainbow (***½)
Much like George Lucas, Coheed & Cambria find it difficult to keep fans engaged in the story of their prequel to the Amory Wars Saga, and fifth overall LP, Year Of The Black Rainbow. By this point, anyone still following the disjointed plot will love whatever the band drops, so perhaps it’s best to focus on what the uneducated Coheed fan can glean from the album, which is where it DOES get interesting. Slicker, darker, and heavier than their lackluster Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Part Two: No World For Tomorrow, Year Of The Black Rainbow is a dizzying feast for the headphones. Enlisting Atticus Ross and Joe Barresi to infused their lurching prog-metal with some electronic flair, Year Of The Black Rainbow benefits from muscular production that makes it as heavy as it is lush. While the 1-2-3 riffage of “The Broken” doesn’t reinvent Coheed’s wheel, it’s the ballads that truly shine on Rainbow. “Far” is a hazy, dense soundscape with thunderous drums and ethereal vocals. On “Pearl Of The Stars,” guitarist Claudio Sanchez lets his inner Slash loose against shimmering acoustics and drifting beats, with deliciously flashy results. While the band’s “concept” has definitely run out of steam, adding drummer Chris Pennie to the fold has proven they can at least make a solid rock record that sounds immersive. The casual listeners will take that any day over understanding what The Crowing actually is.

Key Cuts: The Broken, Far, Pearl Of The Stars

MGMT- Congratulations (*)
Congratulations is, perhaps, the most appropriate tongue-in-cheek designation for MGMT’s new album. Unfortunately, I think they were looking at the joke from a different angle, namely, that their album wasn’t a colossal joke. So, permit me to fill them in on what’s so funny: CONGRATULATIONS MGMT, you’ve made a record that sacrifices any sense of accessibly in the name of pretentious, Brian Eno inspired, wankery. CONGRATULATIONS MGMT, you’ve buried all that was unique about your group, a balance of innovation and pop hooks, under layers of phasers, boring keyboard lines, and goofy harpsichord theatrics. CONGRATULATIONS MGMT, for creating “Siberian Breaks,” a 12 minute test of patience with no rhyme or reason to its transitions, a cut and paste fantasia of throw away snyth-folk that’s got the Pitchfork kids (pun intended) hot and bothered. CONGRATULATIONS MGMT, because the one star you’re receiving is for “I Found A Whistle,” a delicate and shimmering organ number that actually sounds like YOU and not Sgt. Pepper’s Trendy Hipster Club Band. CONGRATULATIONS MGMT, because like so many bands with early promise, you’ve reminded us that the sophomore slump is a hard fall from grace. So there you have it, Congratulations by MGMT, get it?

Key Cuts: I Found A Whistle, Oracular Spectacular

Melodies & Meaning

Author's Note: This is a guest post I authored for my good friend NJ over at Life In A Crystal Pot. Due to it's content and the nature of the thoughts I stumbled upon, I thought you'd guys like to read it too. He'll be putting it up soon on his blog, so you can check it out there as well.

I’ll admit it: When NJ asked me to write a guest post on the topic of music, I was both intimidated and excited.

I was intimidated because NJ’s blog comes from a headspace that’s deep seated in emotions and feelings, where my blog tends to come from an analytical perspective. True, I talk about emotional responses to music, but I imagine the approach he takes with his blog is vastly different from the one I take with mine. However, the excitement I felt stemmed from the chance to write candidly about the greatest thing in the world, and those feelings are always a lot stronger than the apprehensive ones.

So let’s get to it with something that Aldous Huxley once said:

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”

I didn’t read all of Brave New World, but I don’t think I need to in order to figure out what Mr. Huxley is going on about. In fact, the odds are no matter what kind of listener you are, audiophile or casual pop follower, you’ll understand what he’s going on about too.

You’ll understand it because you’ve felt it, from the very music you’ve listened to in your life.

In my 22 years alive, nothing has come close to the experiences I’ve had with music. It’s an anomaly as a form of media as well as a form of creative expression, an incredibly public experience while remaining strikingly intimate. Think about that for a moment: What other artifact can human beings experience in a crowded room, or on a lonely night drive, with said artifact retaining the ability to move one’s inner self? What other tangible thing can get a whole room dancing, or make the moon seem that much brighter? What can lift the weight of the world while giving gravity to our lives?

To my knowledge, only music can.

Regardless of the setting it’s experienced in, music is a profound presence in our lives, one that can simultaneously make us look outward and inward. With a backbeat and melody it can move mountains, heal the hurt, harness a mood, a feeling, or an experience. It can effortlessly imply a universal commonality inside one’s ears, reassuring us that we’re in this big black unknown together, even if it doesn’t seem like it. It can take you in between the shadows and spaces in your mind, while measuring out time itself within in song’s length.

I’m not a religious man, but I’d argue that creating and experiencing music is perhaps the closest we can get to the spiritual, to the cosmic that’s outside ourselves.

With the 20th Century’s advent of the 7” and the 45”, everyone suddenly had access to this magical thing, and it’s only gotten more accessible as time’s gone on. Now all we need is a radio and a dial, an iPhone, or a stereo with that mix CD you’ve been meaning to listen to. Our turntables and CD players become alters in a way, a sacred space where we ritualize our listening with great care. We listen when we’re working, when we’re moving, while we’re sleeping. We allow this thing to move through us, and because we can never touch it, taste it, see it, or smell it, we ALWAYS feel it.

I’m romanticizing it of course, but we take great care to lay these discs down, to create this playlists and mixes. Even the most flippant music consumer is aware that what these mp3s contain is special. We give these sounds our undivided attention, letting them probe the deepest parts of ourselves. We’re more open to them than we are to our loved ones, more attuned to them than the outside world.

We don’t want them ruined, marred or destroyed. We want them to last forever because, in a way, if their presence is infinite, ours will be too.

Because the final thing music does is it brings us back to moments in our lives, the places that are caught between dreaming and remembering. Better than a photograph or a journal, music takes us out of the now and puts us back into the moments that have shaped us. It allows us to travel to the memories we cherish most, the ones with most meaning, the experiences we want to resonate forever. Music takes the feelings we feel, the feelings we cannot accurately relay (even in our closest relationships), and it allows us to feel them as if no time has passed. It allows us to live lifetimes in our mind, an incredible feat for something only experienced by one of our senses.

It makes the intangible, tangible, expressing it with a grace and eloquence that human speech could never fully articulate. It is a shared well of knowledge, gleaned from all corners of the world in a countless number of ways. And when you really think about it, music ultimately explains everything there is to explain: Harmony and discord, pain and joy, love and loss.

All we have to do is listen.

20 Something Bloggers Blog Swap: "Candid Codas"

Blogger's note: This entry's been authored by Jennifer over at These Words on my Lips... She's a talented writer and a wonderful lady for putting up with my work schedule, as well as 20SB not being very good at organizing these blog swaps. I could have sworn they send you email reminders.... ANYWAY, do me the favor and check out her wonderful space on the Internet because it's a really cool thing. I'd consider it a personal favor if you did. Oh, and the guy below is Will Swan. His inclusion makes sense after you read the post. For what it's worth, I had no idea who he was before today.

I'm Jennifer from These Words on my Lips... and I really know nothing about music. Okay, I kinda felt like I was in an AA meeting right there. Let's start over.

I'm Jennifer, you can call me Jenn. Yes, with two N's. So I'm a diva about it, so what? As you can see, I'm not very good with first impressions.

The topic for this blog swap is supposed to be about the best things about being a blogger. Well my favorite thing about being a blogger is talking about whatever I want. So I'm kinda gonna toss the "suggested topic" out the window. Yeah, I'm a rebel too. What of it?

So here I am, a GIRL who knows little to nothing about music guest posting on a BOY's blog who writes specifically about music. And yeah, this guy knows his stuff. Or at least he's convinced me, the girl who knows nothing. [Wow, never thought I'd say THAT about myself.] I do monthly music posts, but they are basically just what I've been listening to each month. No review or opinion whatsoever. Hey, It's kinda like a Get Out Of Jail Free Card at the end of each month. I don't have to think up another long winded post! I like everything from pop-punk to country, as long as it's not Kanye. And you're gonna hate me for this, but I don't change the station when Ke$ha starts singing. Shut up, you know you don't either.

So, as you can see, I'm not really capable of keeping up with the standard set around here, so I'm not even going to try. I can say that I just recently broke up with a guy, we'll call him Tim [because that's his name, duh], who was VERY into music. He pretty much lived for it. In high school, he was a "Scene Kid" with his greasy, black side-swept bang and his girl jeans. He skated and listened to god only knows what emo/screamo music day in and day out. And no, I was not attracted to that. I actually shunned him MANY times. Then I guess at some point he grew up and cut off the bangs. Now he only wishes he were that cool.

You see, while Mike here knows his stuff, Tim talks about music as if it's a competition and can rarely back himself up. I'll explain. This guy name drops like it's nobody's business. We would get in his car and I'd be annoyed by the music playing but trying to tune it out all the same when he pipes in with, "Man, isn't [insert random unknown lead guitarist in random unknown band here] SO amazing on this track?" And I'm all, "Yeah, sure. Um, who is he?" And he just gives me this astonished look like, HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW? and then I somehow manage to feel ridiculous because I don't know who Will Swan is. [And yes, I just looked him up because the only other person I could think of off the top of my head is Pete Wentz, and yeah, I know he plays bass... right?]

This wasn't the reason we broke up. But It was pretty annoying. I even called him out on something once, but he just thought of something completely different and even more unknown so that I couldn't correct him because, HI, NO ONE CARES about a band that is so good that they are trying to get on Warped Tour.

So there, that's my first ever guest post and if you got this far, you win some kind of award because, really, what was the point of all of that? I don't even know. Here I am being all self-depricating now, which is annoying. So I'm going to cut my losses and say that it was a pleasure to switch places with Mike for a day. You should definitely check out his post on my blog, and then stay awhile, if you feel so inclined.