The Gaslight Anthem released a new single yesterday, from their upcoming major-label debut Handwritten, on Mercury records. The song is a return to some of the more punk energies from their debut, but it still maintains some of the Springsteen-esque qualities that engineered their success.
I loved The ’59 Sound. It was a great record. The highs were unbelievable and the low, slow and soulful songs didn’t lose any of the intensity built by the rest of the record. This was my first introduction to the band, when they were getting a lot of attention from PunkNews.org and other music outlets, and I was impressed. A band that successfully melded the melodic punk and folk sounds into something that was almost undeniably fantastic had arrived.
Imagine my surprise on finding out that this wasn’t their first record. There is a concern in the music industry with the “sophomore slump,” where the second record can’t maintain the successes of the first. Gaslight didn’t have that issue. Their second record had all of the melody it needed to make it more successful than their debut, even if it lost some of the punk intensity.
Sink or Swim, the band’s first effort, is a masterpiece of punk rock. Frantic pacing and crunching guitars layer underneath Brian Fallon’s crisp-yet-gritty vocals. Songs like “I Could’a Been a Contender” lull the listener into a sense of calm before assaulting them with walls of sound and wailing guitar solos. “We’re Getting a Divorce, You Keep the Diner” questions the promises of youth, carrying a theme of disillusionment that is present in many of the tracks on the record.
After such a tour de force on the first records, the next two were great musically, but they felt like they lacked the intensity of this first effort. The sense of disillusionment was there, the working-class woes, but missing was the crunch of the guitar and more of the grit to Fallon’s vocal. American Slang is a great record for the working stiff who is disillusioned with the way life has turned out. It is indeed a fantastic record musically, with complex guitar lines that sing underneath Fallon’s Boss-like vocals.
But “45,” this new single, is a return to the days of Sink or Swim, taking the grit and applying it liberally to Fallon’s vocals, adding a splash of energy to all of the instruments. If this indicates anything for Handwritten, we are all in for a treat. It’s as if the band has taken everything they have learned since that first record and mixed it in with that initial burst of the familiar New Jersey punk sound.
The band has certainly faced criticism from some of their fan base, those disappointed with the changes made for The ’59 Sound and even more so at American Slang. They also faced a lot of criticism with their decision to leave SideOneDummy Records for Mercury, but this record may just silence those critics. Well, probably not silence them, but at least stop them from pissing and moaning about the band “selling out.”
The strength of tracks like “The ’59 Sound,” “Great Expectations,” “American Slang” and “Boxer” should have been enough to quiet some of these critics, all having their own charms, but people prefer to ignore the successes and focus on the negatives. All of these songs have some of the intensity of that first record, even if they take a little more musicality and a little less grit.
The best part about this band is that once the music and melodies are stuck in your head, the lyrics are there too—lyrics which carry a lot more weight than just the average song. It’s almost as if every song this band writes has some little universal truth which it must impart, and “45” is no exception. While it feels less personal that some of the other songs, it’s a great start for the new record and it leaves me with high hopes.
What do you think about The Gaslight Anthem’s track record? Chat with Jeremy about it at jgartzke@wisc.edu.
