However, these highpoints are conspicuous by their presence. 'Biloxi Parish's blues-rock swagger, lead single '45's irrepressible pop-rock ebullience, and the high, lonesome tremolos of 'Too Much Blood's fragile chorus are definitely highlights. 'Desire' suffers a similar problem: its promising guitar-leads are buried by vacuous "whoa"s, are just not given enough time to build on their fleeting potential, or else are muted by the domineering sheen of the album's production. Here, all potential for affable gruffness, gripping hooks and moments that move you are terminated by narrow dynamic and tonal ranges, while production values edge out any rough, unique characteristics. Save for a brief, airy bridge, 'Mulholland Drive' is plodding and monotonous. The title track and 'Keepsake' are overblown and one-dimensional, marrying the most accessible features of generic radio rock, classic rock and Americana their grandiosity grates rather than inspires and their structural progressions do little to excite. Ha… well, nearly.Īfter all, much of ‘Handwritten’ has the subtlety of an Old White Lincoln crashing through your door.
'Handwritten' finds The Gaslight Anthem favouring the former over the latter, for it is they whom they reference and revere, and for better or worse, it is the arenas of the former who their newly increased pomposity seems to be firmly aimed at. The heavily referential nature of their lyrics and their well-managed balance of sensitivity and bombast has seen them draw favourable comparisons to the Petty’s, Springsteen’s and Strummer’s of generations passed, as well as the Weakerthans, Alkaline Trio and Titus Andronicus. Moreover, ever the optimistic outsiders, they have often managed to make their romanticised worldview sound life-affirming. In the wrong hands such wistful nostalgia could easily come across as cheesy and trite, but Brian Fallon and the boys have always managed to convey more than enough sincerity to pull it off.
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On Handwritten, after the painful reflection chronicled in "Keepsake" and the rowdy anthemics of "45," that perfect song arrives in a jaw-dropping burst called "Howl." In just a shade over two minutes, in between choruses that boil down to " Hey-eyyyy-eyyyyyyyyy," Fallon dissects a doomed relationship of the variety found in a million rock 'n' roll songs: They're from different sides of the tracks ("Does anything still move you since you're educated now?"), he imagines her living a life of regret ("Do you still hear the sound of thunder while you lie up by yourself?"), and he's still where he's always been ("See, if you wanna, you can find me on the hood under the moonlight").Review Summary: "I already live with too many ghosts".īy their own admission, The Gaslight Anthem have spent their career chasing “classic cars and movie screens/and trying to find some way to be redeemed”. In the title track from The '59 Sound, Fallon obsesses over the last music we hear before we die (there's that "radio + death" formula again), while American Slang's " Stay Lucky" documents the pitfalls of survival, conjuring decades of letdowns in the words, "Everybody used to call you Lucky when you were young." Come to think of it, in Fallon's world, those subjects are interchangeable and all-consuming.Įach of The Gaslight Anthem's last three albums - 2008's The '59 Sound, 2010's American Slang and Handwritten, out July 24 - features one perfect song and a bunch more terrific ones. The Gaslight Anthem specializes in bombastically Springsteenian rock 'n' roll that isn't well-served by lyric sheets: A significant percentage of the New Jersey band's songs could just as easily be titled "American Radio on Fire, Girl." Still, Brian Fallon always infuses his songs with just the right blast of vein-bursting conviction, whether he's shouting about driving with the radio on or reflecting on youth and mortality. The Gaslight Anthem's new album, Handwritten, comes out July 24.Īudio for this feature is no longer available.
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