![]() ![]() Fallon stretches too, hitting high notes both musical and emotional on tracks like “Choir” and the grungy “Old Haunts.” (There’s even a scary moment on the back-from-the-brink anthem “Boxer” where you think he might start rapping, but it passes quickly.) ![]() The songs continue the band’s downtrodden tales of lost wives and forgotten youth, with a newly evocative bent: “The steam heat pours from the bodies on the floor, down in the basement where the jackknives play,” Fallon sings on the soul-tinged “The Diamond Church Street Choir,” in a typical example of the band’s expanding lyrical palette. Songs like the title track, “Stay Lucky” and the driving, buoyant “Orphans” continue the blow-out-the-stops guitar salvation mode of their last CD, and “Bring It On” raises the stakes with a moodier build as Fallon offers to take on all comers for a lost love: “Give me the fevers that just won’t break, and give me the children you don’t want to raise,” he demands, in one of the album’s more striking couplets. On “American Slang,” though, the band is much more than that, with the Joe Strummer influence clearer than ever as it mingles with shades of reggae, grunge and Ramones-era punk pop. ![]() ![]() But in Fallon’s raspy sincerity, his desperate images of heartbroken loners and crushed dreams and the band’s embrace of the power of rock ’n’ roll redemption, Gaslight Anthem is the current frontrunner in the battle of the Springsteen successors. Gone are the direct references to Springsteen lyrics and mentions of Mary and Janey that dotted The Gaslight Anthem’s breakout sophomore album, 2008’s “The ’59 Sound.” But that doesn’t mean the shadow of The Boss doesn’t loom large over the band's latest release.īrian Fallon and the Jersey boys that make up The Gaslight Anthem were always more Springsteenian in spirit than in practice, with Alex Rosamilia’s punky guitars and Benny Horowitz’s pounding drums making their three-minute songs more reminiscent of The Clash than of the E Street Band’s piano-and-saxophone epics. The Gaslight Anthem are far too good to be the New Millennium's answer to John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band, but it's all but impossible to listen to The '59 Sound without being aware of this band's key influence even if they never grow out of their Springsteen obsession, they're worth hearing, but it's hard not to hope they'll develop a stronger identity of their own with time.though they may want to warn their tax accountant before that happens.If there’s one thing “American Slang” isn’t, it’s a Bruce Springsteen tribute album. If Fallon often comes off as a youthful Springsteen wannabe on The '59 Sound, he also happens to be pretty good at it the force and sincerity of his songs roll over the occasional clunky spots, and the band brings this music across with a strength and urgency that suggests a heartland rock version of Social Distortion, with Alex Rosamila's guitars and Benny Horowitz's drumming brimming with fire and energy. Hailing from New Brunswick, NJ, the Gaslight Anthem are that rare punk band that displays a strong and unmistakable Springsteen influence, and while Fallon's vocal resemblance to the Boss is clearly coincidental (he has more than a bit of Bruce's throaty gravity without the grit), the boys-and-girls-on-the-backstreets tone of his lyrics is not, especially when stray fragments from Springsteen's lyrics pop up in Fallon's songs (cue up "Meet Me by the River's Edge" and "High Lonesome" for evidence). Bon Jovi replied "In New Jersey, if you don't like Springsteen they raise your taxes." Listening to the Gaslight Anthem's second full-length album The '59 Sound, it's pretty clear that leader Brian Fallon doesn't have to worry much about his tax bill in the Garden State. In 1988, Jon Bon Jovi was being interviewed by a reporter for Spin Magazine when he was asked if he was a fan of Bruce Springsteen. ![]()
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