The Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten

The Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten

Mercury Records, 2012

Five stars

Last December, when I ranked Brian Fallon's side project (The Horrible Crowes, with an album titled Elsie) as my sixth favorite record of the year, I speculated that, probably, the young frontman still had his masterpieces ahead of him. That was a still few months before the title and tracklist for Handwritten, the fourth full-length album from Fallon and his main bandmates in The Gaslight Anthem, surfaced online, but I already had high hopes for what 2012 would bring for them. And how could I not? Fallon worships Springsteen and is a disciple of Petty; he's shared the stage with the E-Street Band; he can bellow like Tom Waits or croon like the old Motown legends: his band can scorch the stage like The Clash or convincingly deliver covers of untouchable hits like "Baba O' Riley" by The Who; and on Handwritten, that band, with Fallon at the forefront, finally has the talent, the resources, the songs, and the timing to make a case for themselves, not only as one of the last great rock 'n' roll acts, but as one of the all time greats, period.

I adored The '59 Sound, the 2008-released near-masterpiece that, until now, has stood as Fallon and co's definitive statement. That record was a deep collection of vintage rock 'n' roll, from the nostalgic Springsteen references to the wistful summertime imagery that drenched many of its songs, and in the years since its release, it has become a personal favorite of mine. 2010's American Slang was almost as good, trading Springsteen for shades of Motown pop ("Bring it On") and Van Morrison spontaneity ("The Diamond Church Street Choir"), but on the whole, it was distinctly less immediate. Detractors claimed that the band had shed every ounce of the punk influence that had defined their debut (Sink or Swim, a solid debut, but their weakest work so far) in exchange for a cleaner, more commercially viable sound. And while that was true, the main problem was that, as great as American Slang was, it just wasn't quite up to the level of its predecessor.


A killer side project, an adventurous covers EP, and a major record contract later, The Gaslight Anthem is finally ready to play in the big leagues. They bring in Brendan O'Brien, Springsteen's most recent go-to producer, to help them punch up the sound for their first play in the major label world, and boy, is it a powerful one. O'Brien, as is his custom, makes the band sound huge, bringing Fallon's distinctive vocals and Alex Rosamilia's massive lead guitar sound to the forefront, while leaving the talented rhythm section (Alex Levine on bass and Benny Horowitz on drums) to hold everything together. And surprisingly, despite the presence of Springsteen's producer in the studio, Handwritten ends up being the first time that The Gaslight Anthem haven't sounded at all like a band living in the shadow of their idols. It's one thing to wear your influences on your sleeve and another to actually quote them directly, and while Fallon's tendency towards lyrical references has always been one of the most enjoyable quirks of his songwriting (he prominently borrowed from both Springsteen and Counting Crows, among others, on The '59 Sound), his best songs have been the ones that have stood on their own. Luckily, Handwritten is the sound of a band who have only gotten better and come further into their own with each passing release. This time around, the boys aren't just paying tribute to Springsteen, or sharing the stage with him: this time, they're challenging him.

When Springsteen dropped Wrecking Ball earlier this year, I proclaimed it a late-career masterpiece, called it his best work since the '80s, and wondered seriously whether any artist would be able to make an album as good all year. But right from my introductory listen of Handwritten, right from the first time I pressed play and experienced this record, it was clear that The Gaslight Anthem had crafted something special. That was evident from first single and album opener "45," a propulsive hymn to the power of rock 'n' roll that burns with the energy of a hundred lesser acts. When the single dropped at the end of April, I almost immediately called it one of the band's best performances on record. O'Brien had captured everything that makes this band great, from the desperation in Fallon's voice to the classic rock swell that the band sits in so perfectly, and I figured that, if this song were the rule and not the exception, The Gaslight Anthem could just have an album of the year on their hands. Luckily for me, "45" is actually one of the weaker tracks, igniting a perfect five song progression that kicks off the record and climaxes with the almost Oasis-esque "Keepsake." The song, which features a particularly scorching guitar line, courtesy of Rosamilia, sees Fallon opening up about his relationship with his father. Marked by one of the biggest and angriest choruses the band has ever penned, "Keepsake" shatters into a tremulous cascade of plucked strings at the break, giving listeners a brief respite before the chorus barrels back in.

In between, Fallon and his trio of band members deliver three of the best songs they've ever written. The title track revisits the nighttime themes that accentuated the best tracks on The '59 Sound ("Here in the dark I cherish the moonlight/I'm in love with the way you're in love with the night," Fallon sings on one of the album's best lyrical couplets), while also lending it with some of the same darkness that surrounded Fallon's work with The Horrible Crowes. In addition, the song sheds a bit of light on the writing process behind the record. As the title suggests, Fallon scrawled the lyrics for these songs into a beat up old notebook, and the result is his most immediate and most personal collection to date. Want proof? Look no further than the transcendent highlight that is "Here Comes My Man," a rhythmically driving throwback to the girls groups of the 1960s and to Phil Spector's legendary "Wall of Sound" production technique. Springsteen has never been shy about his adoration for 1960s pop, especially girl groups like The Crystals and The Ronettes, and The Gaslight Anthem adopt that love as their own here. The song, told from the point of view of a female, offers an interesting lyrical direction reminiscent of the multiple gender-switching perspectives Jimmy Eat World employed on 2010's Invented. It also features an irresistible "sha la la" hook and one of Fallon's strongest vocal performances ever, two aspects that combine to make one of the summer's best should-be-hits: the Boss would be proud.

"Mulholland Drive" is almost as good, landing somewhere between '90s Counting Crows and Sam's Town-era Killers, and building to a spiraling guitar hook that is nothing short of indelible. The grungy "Too Much Blood" is another time capsule from the '90s, and will likely be considered the album's centerpiece cut thanks to a 5 minute run-time. The ghost of Kurt Cobain and the shadow of Eddie Vedder drift through the song's anthemic chorus, its dirty guitar lines, and Fallon's anguished, near-shouted vocals. And while neither of the '90s alt-rock gods have ever been idols of mine, Fallon's attempt to channel them pays off, giving the album's middle section an epic grandiosity that has been lacking thus far. "Howl" changes directions yet again, coming in at just over two minutes, and delivering the kind of spontaneous, shout-along anthem that the fans of their punk days have been begging for. It's far from a highlight, but the song serves its purpose and would likely be brilliant in a live setting.

"Biloxi Parish" and "Desire" land the closest to the territory the band mined on American Slang, with the former offering up a massive hook, and the latter, while probably the album's least distinctive number, still holding true to the impossibly high standard that Fallon and his band set early on with this record. But that bar is quite simply blown away with the final two tracks, as The Gaslight Anthem save the best songs on the disc (and arguably the best songs in their career, short of The '59 Sound's epic closer "The Backseat") for last. First is "Mae," a flawless penultimate number with a gorgeous sonic sweep and a tearful lyrical drive that will undoubtedly land it near the top of my "songs of the year" list. "And still this city pumps its aching heart for one more drop of blood/We work our fingers down to dust/While we wait for kingdom come with the radio on," Fallon croons, giving himself over to song's emotional and sentimental nature. It's a ballad, through and through, a heart-on-your-sleeve, thoroughly moving piece of music that hits all the right marks and lands as one of the best things Fallon has ever done. And while the Sink or Swim fans will likely cry "sell out" and beg for the punk edge that this band has long since shed, when "Mae" and its nostalgic guitar riff pour out of my speakers, I know that The Gaslight Anthem have reached a new level. When I hear this song, in the car on late summer nights, or through my headphones as I sit watching the sun go down and the season begin to dwindle, I know that I'm hearing something that truly matters.

"National Anthem" brings the record full-circle, ending it with a song that is both open-ended and resoundingly final. The spirit of Darkness on the Edge of Town-era Springsteen is at work here, in the atmospheric acoustic guitar picking, in the lush and haunting strings, and certainly in Fallon's words. "I remember she used to look so good in that dress/Now she just screams how I promised her more than this," he sings at the song's key moment, channeling the weathered and regretful, yet still somehow resilient voice that Bruce so memorably adopted for the most harrowing cuts on his 1978 classic. And while Fallon steers clear of reference and imitation on Handwritten (aside from the stellar bonus track "Blue Dahlia," which borrows a lyric from R.E.M.'s "Nightswimming"), his idols and influences are never far from the proceedings here. If The '59 Sound was Fallon's The Wild, The Innocent, The E-Street Shuffle, a rich tapestry of summer nights, pastime memories, carnival imagery, infinite youth, and lost heroes, and if Elsie was his Nebraska, then Handwritten is unequivocally his Darkness on the Edge of Town. It's his darkest, most personal, and most importantly, best album yet; it's a maze of fantastic hooks, soaring guitar lines, and personal confessions, both elated and anguished, and literally every time it ends, all I want to do is hit replay. I still think his Born to Run is ahead of him, but for now, I am content in calling Handwritten a bona fide masterpiece. It's the record I will remember as this year's summer soundtrack, the record that will encapsulate memories and moments from this season for as long as I continue to play it. It's also the best album of the year, edging out Springsteen himself, and for four New Jersey punks who have spent their lives and their careers chasing that impossible legacy, there can be no higher praise.

Keep on dreamin', even if it breaks your heart...

Next to Butch Walker scoring songwriting credit on major hits and earning the distinction of Producer of the Year from Rolling Stone magazine back in 2005, hearing Will Hoge's "Even if it Breaks Your Heart" on the radio waves is one of the most satisfying occurrences to take place within the mainstream in years - even if it's not Hoge singing on the record. I've gotta say, there have been a few moments this year that have almost given me hope for mainstream popular music. First, Adele's continued domination of the charts showed that the album format still had some gas left in it; next, fun. hit number one on the charts and even now continue to display a surprising amount of longevity with Some Nights; and now, Will Hoge's song, one of my favorite songs from 2009, is making waves on the radio waves, three years down the road from the first time it graced my ears. Of course, it's not his version: the "hit song" status that now lies on "Even if it Breaks Your Heart" is thanks to the Eli Young Band and their version of the tune. It's been bizarre hearing the song issuing from speakers that don't belong to either myself or my older brother, whether I was hearing it on the radio waves or in the midst of a slew country standards playing on my co-worker's iTunes, but I'd call it a good kind of bizarre. Even in decidedly less talented hands than Hoge's, "Even if it Breaks Your Heart" remains as great a song today as it has always been.

I always thought that "Even if it Breaks Your Heart" had crossover potential, from the first time I listened to The Wreckage and fell in love with Will's music, and I suppose I have been proven right there. Still, it makes me wonder: why isn't this guy a huge country music star? Eli Young is clearly a more talented individual than the majority of the stars in pop music today, and I think that, in general, country music, even in its most mainstream forms, is a much less egregious and offensive genre than the majority of what crops up on top-40 radio. For the most part, the singers can still sing, the players can still play, and the records still have a measure of emotional force and artistic integrity to them. That said, Young's take on "Even if it Breaks Your Heart" doesn't add anything new to it: he plays the song straight, which is fine, but the only notable difference is that it sounds more generic, more stereotypically "country," but only in a modern sense. Hoge is very much in the vein of classic country and rock music stars: he's Tom Petty, Hank Williams, and Springsteen rolled into one, with a twinge of Johnny Cash thrown in for good measure. His voice is distinctive and unique, his vocal performances sparked with an emotional honesty that is impossible to doubt, no matter what he's singing about. His songs are, across the board, stellar, flitting between rock, pop, country, folk, and even gospel, and breaking down the barriers between all of them. And more than anything else, he's a force of nature onstage, ranking amongst the greatest performers I've ever seen. If there were any justice, this man would be a living legend.

A cover song is a weird route into fame for any artist. Even if your performance of another artist's song takes it to a new level (basically, if you're Jeff Buckley), it still has an asterisk next to it. That's a bit odd to me because, inevitably, we all start out as little more than a collection of our influences. We take our first steps into music by learning how to sing and play other people's songs, and we channel that experience into our own music, if and when we begin to write it. The Eli Young Band doesn't exactly fit into any of this, since they had one big hit prior to "Even if it Breaks Your Heart," but the idea still remains: cover songs as hits are a tricky beast - especially if much of your audience will probably never even know there's another version of the song in question. And I guess, ultimately, it doesn't really matter, because Will's song is speaking for itself: a lot of people obviously love it, and it could mean big things for him. Maybe he'll take a leaf out of Butch Walker's book and start doing some songwriting for other artists; maybe it will filter out into bigger tour opportunities, more fans, bigger album sales, and a better life for Hoge; maybe he won't always have to drive his band from town to town in a beat up old van, foregoing sleep in order to get to the next venue and play a kick ass rock 'n' roll show. I don't begrudge Eli Young his success with the song, I just wish that the success were Will's to call his own, and I just hope that he's getting the recognition and compensation he deserves for it.

"The restless dream we left behind."

 Jack's Mannequin - People And Things

Sire Records, 2011

Four stars

The last time Andrew McMahon released a record, it was the first new music he'd made since he'd been diagnosed with leukemia (and beaten it). That record, called The Glass Passenger and released in 2008, was his statement: an emotional, powerful set of songs from a guy who'd gotten a new lease on life, and I loved it from my first listen. As the years have gone on, I've recognized a few things I would change about that record: it's inconsistent, both in quality and mood, and the slew of b-sides from those sessions, released on a series of EPs (The Ghost Overground, In Valleys and Dear Jack) suggested that McMahon had a much better record on his hands than the one he released. McMahon took a lot of chances on that record though, writing songs that were completely different from everything he'd ever released, ranging from an ambitious symphony of a pop song ("Caves"), edgier rock than he'd written since the early Something Corporate days ("Bloodshot"), or a clever twist on his usual piano balladry ("Orphans"). Sometimes though, the risks didn't pay off, like on the big rock song "Suicide Blonde," which should have been left as a b-side, or the amalgamation of songs that was "American Love" (McMahon wrote that song by combining a bunch of different leftover lyrics that never fit into other songs), which remains my least favorite McMahon song released to date. Both of those tracks should have been left off in favor of some of that album's b-sides, like the infectious "Doris Day" (which would have been one of the three or four best tracks on that record), the acoustic "At Full Speed," or any of the tracks from the Dear Jack EP, all of which dealt with Andrew's cancer directly. With a few key track exchanges, The Glass Passenger could have been one of my favorite albums of all time. As is, it's still a very good album with a handful of the best tracks McMahon has ever written; a flawed near-masterpiece that was more than a worthy follow-up to Everything in Transit, which remains a top five all time album for me.

Jack's Mannequin's third record, entitled People And Things, dropped last week, and has been one of my most anticipated records for this entire year. Lead single "My Racing Thoughts," an extremely catchy pop song that finds a middle ground between the slick power pop of Transit and the more folk inspired sound of Passenger, only boosted my expectations. For the most part, People And Things is a contrast to The Glass Passenger in that it is a very safe album. It's sound generally plays things very close to where he was musically on the last record's more straightforward cuts, delivering quick, snappy pop songs (no track on the album cross the 4.5 minute mark) or folky, roots-rock tinged numbers (McMahon clearly spent a fair amount of time with his Tom Petty records while making this album). Gone is the adventurous spirit of The Glass Passenger, and while that arguably makes for a more cohesive and consistent record, it also makes for a decidedly less involving one. There are no climactic two-part songs on this record, no really striking or chilling moments, which McMahon seemed to deliver on half the tracks on Passenger (how could he not, given the circumstances?), but the hooks also lack the same infectious quality that the songs on Transit had. That album had at least half a dozen perfect pop choruses, hooks that latched themselves onto your brain after a single listen. While this record tries to find middle ground between Andrew's last two records, and does so admirably, it also ends up being undoubtedly the weakest of the three.

The weird thing is, that doesn't even disappoint me. Andrew has never released a record I didn't love, and this one is no exception to that rule. Straight out of the gate, it delivers four killer songs. The extremely catchy "Racing Thoughts" is the lead-off, and is right in line with the way McMahon has opened each of his albums: anthemic tracks that promise great things to come. "Release Me" is a glorious pop-rocker, while "Television" is a gorgeous, slightly more subdued moment, but has a kind of epic sweep to it that is nothing short of addicting. Pre-release track "Amy, I" sounded better in it's live setting than it does on record, and it's big hook might actually be it's weak point next to the verses, but it's still a solid pop song. "Hey, Hey, Hey (We're All Gonna Die)" and "Platform Fire" were both written around the time of The Glass Passenger's release, and live videos of both have been floating around the internet for several years now. The latter is a big Something Corporate-esque pop song (think North) that falls just short of great, while "Hey, Hey, Hey" sounds so much like a Passenger b-side (that album's title actually comes from the verses) that it's presence on this album ends up feeling a bit jarring. It's the weakest track here, in my opinion, but many will love it's big, shout along chorus, and the verses are gorgeous, both musically and lyrically.

With "People, Running," the album transitions to it's second, stronger half. The song is one of the album's finest, a mid-tempo rocker with a bright hook and fantastic lyrics that could have fit on Everything in Transit. Album highlight "Amelia Jean" is a gorgeous piano driven number that showcases Andrew's folk/Americana influence on this album, and sports one of the album's most instantly memorable and highest soaring choruses, drawing a great vocal from McMahon: this is the kind of song that made me fall in love with Andrew's music in the first place. "Hostage" is just as good, and is one of the biggest and purest pop songs Andrew has ever recorded. He gives one of his best vocal performances to date on this song, belting out the pitch perfect chorus with gorgeous tone. His voice on these past two records has changed notably from the higher, brighter tone he employed on Everything in Transit, and whether that has to do with production, the songwriters he's emulating or actual vocal changes is hard to gauge, but it draws a clear dividing line between these past two records and the first. While I miss the more power pop driven sound, it's hard to fault his vocals on this record, especially on songs as good as "Hostage" or "Restless Dream," an acoustic guitar driven song that qualifies as the album's only true ballad. Singer/songwriter Brandi Carlisle adds a nice dimension with her light, sensitive backing vocals, accenting the song's thoughtful lyrics (some of Andrew's best), while the cello accompaniment near the end is exquisite. 

The climactic "Casting Lines" ends the album on a hopeful note, but is over far too soon for my taste, as it's one of the album's three or four strongest compositions. That, however, is my main complaint with People And Things: it's just a hair safer and a hair shorter than it should be. The handful of b-sides that Andrew released on the iTunes deluxe edition reveal that this brevity was in no way due to a lack of solid material, as any of those four tracks could have easily found a place on this album. The Something Corporate-esque piano ballad, "No Man Is An Island," would have been especially welcome, as this album's lack of a signature Andrew McMahon piano ballad is one of it's biggest weaknesses. This is, after all, the guy who wrote such classics as "Konstantine," "Cavanaugh Park" and "Rescued," so the lack of another possible addition to that pantheon of greats is disappointing. Other than that though, it's hard to fault People And Things for much: it's a great pop album with a bit of a folk/rock flavor, and the fact that it falls a little bit short of McMahon's previous work is still no reason for me to not completely love it. I'm just hoping that next time out, McMahon takes a few more risks: I think he still has another classic in him, and I'm willing to wait around for awhile to hear it.