Brand NewThe Devil and God Are Raging Inside MeGrade: A
After releasing Your Favorite Weapon back in 2001, Long Island band Brand New tried their best to shed their emo skin, which is hard to do because of their associations with bands like The Movielife and Taking Back Sunday.
However, in 2003, after releasing Deja Entendu, little by little, the band made progress. Deja Entendu showed a depth that many bands, much less emo bands, ever display in their careers. Songs like “Sic Transit Gloria” and “Guernica” showed hints of progressive and alternative rock while still maintaining an accessible pop connection. Lead singer Jesse Lacey explored a variety of realms with his vocals from monotony to wailing and everything in between; the music was trippier and beefed up with every effects pedal created.
The band’s latest goes even further, deeper, and darker, and from what Deja Entendu taught us, Brand New prepared itself for the descent.
The album’s first single, “The Sowing Season,” proves to be a little slice of mid-90s alt rock reminiscent of Alice in Chains. Like Alice’s frontman Lane Staley, Lacey sets the mood with his somber vocals but eventually cuts loose in ways that many bands are afraid to even touch.
“And I hope you will forget things I still lack,” Lacey entreats.
It’s hard not to regard this statement as an admission of the singer’s own shortcomings as a guitarist, vocalist, band member, or human being. However, when the song reaches its roaring chorus, Lacey never seems surer of himself. The chorus can’t be characterized any way other than “roaring” since it consists of some of the most balanced yet unhinged screaming of 2006.
“I’m just a man who knows how to feel.”
The listener finds out through the course of the album that this fact is what makes the album so effective and brilliant.
All the songs march along at either a walking pace or less than. Only “The Archer’s Bows Have Broken” dares to quicken the speed as the intro explodes in a distant and thunderous drum roll. For the rest of the song, Lacey recites his lyrics like someone desperately seeking to reach the end of his adolescence. Indeed, that’s exactly what the entire band finds itself doing.
“Who do you carry the torch for, my young man?” Lacey asks.
Though it’s difficult to speak for his subject, we’re at least sure that Lacey prefers to carry the torch of manhood and maturity.
Gone are the ludicrously long song titles characteristic of Deja Entendu and of most emo bands for that matter. Furthermore, the band has ditched the easily digestible lyrical material of past singles like “Jude Law and a Semester Abroad.” Lacey always proved more than capable of turning a clever phrase. However, this time around, the entire band finds itself discontent with mere cleverness. All the members attack their instruments in an attempt to tug at the heartstrings and then cut them all to pieces. Frankly, the album might leave listeners in pieces as well.