C/D : The Gaslight Anthem

i really like the production here, putting the vocals a little deeper in

makes them sound more idk

polished

sorta their "stay positive,"

i had this exact thought

ew don't bring up that band

haha i'm still waiting on your "this is why gaslight is better" essay

"keepsake" almost makes me think of nickelback, the atmospheric elements of their stuff that isn't as awful as their actual songs

yeah, shit, this record is gonna grow on me a lot.

I wish I liked these guys more. I respect what they are doing but it doesn't move me.

last hurrah of their established style and themes before they need to evolve or stagnate

See, I hear the first glimmers of stagnation, and in fact I even hear a little bit of retrenchment after the likes of "The Diamond Church Street Choir" and "The Queen of Lower Chelsea," but I do have to give the new album more time. For the first time ever, I'm not sure it was a good decision to bury the vocals a bit.

djp otm

haha i'm still waiting on your "this is why gaslight is better" essay

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, July 24, 2012 5:42 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

rock music with singing > rock music with monologues

well done

I wish I liked these guys more. I respect what they are doing but it doesn't move me.

― PITILESS LIVE SHOW (DJP), Tuesday, July 24, 2012 6:16 PM (5 hours ago)

this is weird to me because to me they're kind of conventional & therefore to me a "greater than the sum of their parts" band - i'd expect non-fans to not really get the big deal

i'm confused about what's going on in 'here comes my man'

tons of great lines on this thing. i remember on the last album that every time i listened to a song there was a new line that i noticed. on "handwritten": "and to ease the loss of youth"

his man is coming

the coda to "handwritten" is why i love this band

one problem i'm having is that a lot of the themes are less interesting to me than on the last album. unrelated, "handwritten" kinda gives me a "the river" vibe (tho much more hopeful in conclusion than the river), and it turns out i still really like emo-boss.

Here Comes My Man is written from the perspective of A Lady, apparently. It is not a harbinger of a heroin habit.

Themes on this album: he's given up pretending to write as the everyman, he says, because he knows he is no longer the everyman.

Not unlike on The River

That's not a theme of The River at all! Tunnel of Love, maybe.

"blue dahlia" (from the bonus traxx) sounds like it could have been on the "senor and the queen" EP - the chorus kind of clashes in a weird way with the verses but other than that it's a welcome return

Looking forward to listening to this this weekend when I have some free time. You guys have lowered my expectations which is a good thing.

Matt - I interviewed the Vaccines the other day and put to them your contention, after their second single, that you preferred their early stuff. They thought that was uproarious. Yes, I take all my questions from ILX posts.

Hah, I don't really remember saying that in the first place but good stuff.

http://www.spin.com/reviews/gaslight-anthem-handwritten-mercury

worst new music? a little harsh

smh, terrible

thought this reviewer at least tried to think a little http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16856-handwritten/

http://i.imgur.com/Nj59d.gif

hahahah

yeah sorry whines i prefer reviews that actually engage with the material and approach it with something resembling respect - that dude obviously saw the opportunity to get in some lazy zings and good for him if it's getting him spin paid but it's shitty writing

i haven't heard this album and i didn't have much of a problem w/ it but yeah it was obv more of a leveling of the band than the specific album

Yeah, I get the impression those last two reviewers were pretty set on panning it before they even heard it, based on the zings; which to be fair, if I was reviewing records on a consistent basis, I'd probably run across a few albums every year that I'd end up reviewing, knowing beforehand that it's not my thing, and writing a review signifying such.

tbh a band that stays so unfalteringly true to its formula from album to album kinda invites pre-written pans

Don't recall any pans of the last two, but I know the Horrible Crowes album rubbed some people the wrong way. And then comes an album that if anything upped the earnestness, which seems hard to do. Fork review otm in that it would be nice to hear a glimmer of humor in this endeavor.

I agree this band is becoming a bit formulaic, but I don't hear much of a qualitative difference among the three albums. Did this band ever have a sense of humor? I don't remember chuckling at any of their previous songs. Either way, that's not something that I care about at all (big Radiohead stan here).

i agree that the last 3 albums really very nearly equal -- i was just saying being consistent, while it can be enjoyable, can set a band up to get some pretty paint-by-numbers reviews

Finally bought this. I didn't love American Slang at first either, but this is seriously growing on me.

('59 Sound is easily my fave rock album of the last five years, btw.)

but this is seriously growing on me

^ this

I would more or less describe all three albums the same way, but I think the quality of the songs on "59 Sound" and "American Slang" are superior. I haven't made it through a listen of the new one yet that didn't make me wish I was listening to one of the other ones instead. Does not make the new one bad, per se, but I definitely think it inferior, and not just because it is more of the same.

Don't think the idea is that the band was ever funny, just that a glimmer of humor or wit could be a nice way to shake things up without really changing much, sonically. On its face Gaslight Anthem does not seem any more conservative than, say, Lucero, but Lucero seems a little less beholden to a specific template. But it's not like I'm writing off Gaslight Anthem at all. I'm curious to hear if the group ever grows beyond the sum of its (wonderful, exciting, anthemic, etc.) cliches.

Right, I feel like where Lucero asks the girl to dance cause they're downtown and drunk and it's Friday, Gaslight asks the girl to dance ~for redemption~. that's part of what I like about them, but 4 records without much of a wink gets kinda staid.

"here comes my man" is becoming my favorite on this. i think taking a different voice - something, as we alluded to upthread, that fallon does infrequently - really opens him up on this song. lines like "and i'll never let you drop another tear in my eye" and "don't you think i knew about all your pretty girlfriends" affect partly because of just how unusual they are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoW3Pgv-gng

seeing these guys in philly in november @ electric factory. pretty excited actually - especially if they play older stuff and not just new material

when i saw them a lil while ago they played stuff from all four records, it was p rad

yeah i think one benefit of them having figured out their sound from the get-go is that they seem to mix the old and the new pretty seamlessly. plus i think they know no matter how big they get The 59 Sound is gonna be the record that they need to give people a certain amount of songs from every night.

show was excellent!

i noticed that a lot of their lyrics include some variation of the words "sad songs"

i was also sad bc no "lucky" or "american slang." lots of other great songs tho including 'blood bank' and 'just like heaven' covers. 'too much blood' and 'handwritten' were huge too -> over capacity electric factory crowd, philly seems to be huge gaslight anthem fans

oh yeah, and astro zombies cover!

i was sort of shocked at how many frat types appeared at their last show

have they always been a fratty band and i just didn't notice with my headphones at home

i had tickets to monday night in boston but couldn't go :(