The '59 Sound
Sitting in my adopted state of New Jersey
I can't help but be a little proud of anything good coming out
of the state. It's part of the inferiority complex from which
the Garden State suffers (although why would anybody feel inferior
to Pennsylvania?) We're just so used to everything here sucking
(the drivers, the taxes, the smell, etc) that when we see a
success story like Bruce
or Bon Jovi, we latch on with two
hands and don't let go. Such is the case with Gaslight Anthem,
who sound even more like a latter day Springsteen than the oft-compared
The Hold Steady. Sleeved
in tattoos and with a face that is both sweet and weary, lead
singer Brian Fallon channels The Boss somewhere between his
Born to Run and Born in the USA mode. The
music is anthematic rock n' roll about boys and girls and small
Jersey towns and growin' up inside the struggle. There are times
where the lyrics ride that very edge of cliche, but are effective
in a way that is genuine and never whiney or pathetic (the pitfall
of so much modern popular rock). Sure it's a little more poppy
than I'm used to, but since listening to this album I've actually
felt my Jersey juices flowing and might dig into the stacks
for those old Bruce albums and see what all the fuss is about.
Even Belle & Sebastian thinks
"Jersey's where it's at!" |
American Slang
I recall reading somewhere where the lead
singer of Gaslight Anthem, Brian Fallon, called his band's Bruce
Springsteen comparisons lazy journalism. Guilty as charged!
So it is with that knowledge that I listen to this, their fourth
album. I suppose he's right in that their music owes more to
the 50s and 60s rock scene than the 60s and 70s singer songwriter
tradition. Rather than hangin' at the threshin machine on the
hood of your pickup in South Jersey, it's more hangin with the
carclub boys in a dimly lit parking lot smoking cigarettes in
Weehawken. It's tattoos, not bandannas. It's Social
Distortion, I suppose. But like Social Distortion light.
The lead singer is a non-drinking, non-drugging "Christian"
and as such is missing something of an edge in both his songwriting
and delivery on this album. This one is the opposite of a grower--I
guess it's more of a shrinker. My first spin through, I was
enthused, my second not so much, and each subsequent listen
makes it harder and harder to ignore the pop netherworld in
which this album lives. It's like being an "independent."
Bullshit. Pick a side: do you rock or don't you? |
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