Pushing Daisies
The happy punk rock Brand New, of the early 2000s, is dead and the band has changed so drastically from album to album that, aside from possible recognition of vocals, the music is non-comparable. With each album, the sound and lyrics have gotten darker, more mature and more angst-filled, culminating with 2006’s masterpiece ‘The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me.’
Brand New could have digressed and made the album that longtime fans yearn to hear, but the band instead went further down the rabbit hole and created their loudest album yet. ‘Daisy,’ the group’s fourth CD, and second release on major label Interscope, is a big middle finger to the fans of their 2001 debut album, ‘Your Favorite Weapon.’
‘Daisy’ also marks the first time that lead guitarist Vin Accardi pens most of the tracks. Accardi, who wrote their previous album’s last track, ‘Handcuffs,’ has a very different lyrical style from his band mates.
While the themes of the last album – death, love and loneliness- all appear, Accardi speaks in cryptic metaphors. Many of the song’s lines do not make sense and most songs lack the pop-rock structure of the writing produced by Jesse Lacey, lead vocalist.
The album sounds under produced and is filled with noise and discordant guitar solos, but that’s not to say that ‘Daisy’ is disorganized or incoherent. It sounds as if Brand New consciously crafted the album as it appears, even if some songs seem spare or unfinished.
The album’s first track, ‘Vices,’ starts with a scratchy 90-second piano ballad and a raw recording of a female vocalist singing ‘Life’s Highway’ before brooding and screeching guitars explode to life. Then Lacey enters, screaming ‘We need vices.’
The title, ‘Daisy,’ gives the feeling of something calm and peaceful, but this album is anything but that. The screams atop the off-time guitar harmonics and licks are the perfect stage-setters for the next 40 minutes. The album constantly shifts from loud to soft and back again.
After the ear-assault of ‘Vices,’ the album segues into ‘Bed,’ the softest and possibly dullest of all 11 tracks and one of the few songs that could have been on Brand New’s ‘The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me.’
Then the disc’s first single, ‘At The Bottom,’ continues the post-grunge vibe, with lyrics about burying a loved one. Lacey uses a new vocal style similar to Modest Mouse singer Isaac Brock. As a single, it fails to show the complexity and aggressiveness of the album, but it is one of the few songs with a chorus that gets stuck in your head.
Later, the album’s strongest track, ‘Sink,’ is another loud, scream-filled rocker reminiscent of Nirvana’s album ‘In Utero.’ The soft-to-loud buildup works perfectly as Lacey screams, ‘If you call, then I’m coming to get you. You want to sink, so I’m going to let you.’ Fans of Brand New will likely appreciate the no-holds barred aggression of Lacey’s vocals, but it may take a few listens to grasp the new textures employed by Accardi and his army of pedal effects.
On the album closer, ‘Noro,’ Lacey sings, ‘I wan to burn down everything we begun,’ sparking fan-based rumors that this may be the final album of the Long Island foursome. If this is the case, the premier emo rock band of the decade will go out swinging.
Published on September 20, 2009 at 12:00 pm
