The Gaslight Anthem | Get Hurt
Even though The Gaslight Anthem are my favorite band, I’ve never bothered to write about them. I know we’re supposed to give album recommendations here, but there needs to be some consideration for bias. And for having something to say. So let me get caught up. Their first album Sink or Swim was really good. The ’59 Sound is my favorite album of all time. 2010’s American Slang was also a great album. Then came Handwritten: I loved it. I would elaborate, but it would just a read like a love letter to the band. Pretty much exactly like the one I mailed to singer Brian Fallon, minus the spritzes of perfume. And that pair of my panties I included.
With Get Hurt, the band’s 5th full-length studio album it’s time to end the love affair. Which is fitting as this is a break-up album. I’m not really heading to Splitsville with Fallon because of Get Hurt, but it is the first disc that the band put out where I wasn’t immediately hooked. The sound of the album is a little harder to immediately embrace for the masses I would imagine too; it’s not always as catchy, there are too many “downer” songs, and Fallon’s naturally strained vocals are little too strained at times. I want my singers to sound pained, not dying. He admitted he was heavily influenced by Pearl Jam’s No Code when writing Get Hurt. That album was never that thrilling for me (“Hail, Hail” a notable exception), but Fallon is certainly embracing the mix of understated spoken word and gruff wailing that Eddie Vedder would appreciate. Alternating straightforward rockers with slow confessionals. I can appreciate the desire to try something different, but I can’t help but feel they would be better served to stay in their lane: uptempo songs influenced by punk and Motown, not grunge and alt-rock from 20 years ago.
From the first 30 seconds of Get Hurt you can feel that Fallon has left behind his Springsteen album collection and borrowed mine from early 90s. “Stay Vicious” sounds like it a fringe Stone Temple Pilots hit. Scott Weiland, is that you? You must be dead by now, right? It’s heavy and brooding, and gives you a bad taste in your mouth right off the bat. “Great Expectations” from The ’59 Sound kicks your teeth in before forcing to you to sing along. Which must sound quite silly. Likewise “American Slang” sets a tone for the whole album that says get out of your seat, move your feet, and clap those hands. “Stay Vicious” tells me to lean forward and bang my long, greasy hair. Well, I’m bald dammit. And I’m done listening to grunge. Well, unless I get drunk and watch Pearl Jam 20 for the 400th time.
The first song off the new album is actually the only song I thoroughly dislike. “1,000 Years” caught me off guard with how high Fallon goes when singing the chorus, but is balanced out by the muted and distorted verses and bridge. Gaslight really goes wild with this mixing and matching of vocal styles throughout Get Hurt. It’s particularly jarring on “Helter Skeleton” with an intense Fallon yelling the over-strained words at you during the verse and only partially saving it with the other parts of the song that would fit better on either their 2nd or 3rd records. They pull the vocal rotating more subtly on “Ain’t That a Shame” and much better on “Dark Places”, the album’s phenomenal closer, but it does seem like they are trying a little too hard to half ass experiment. Not by completely changing their sound, but by pushing the limits of what they can do without fundamentally changing the band. Bored of writing the same songs all over again? Let’s write them all over anyway, only this time I’m going to yell them while you tug at my nuts. Then for the chorus I’m going to whisper the words into the mic through a megaphone because, what the fuck, we haven’t tried that yet, right?
The album does have it’s bright spots for sure. “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” is one of the rare times when a band’s first single may actually be the best song on the disc. It’s loud, fast, and catchy and still a comforting voice for someone fighting depression. It’s followed by “Red Violins” which could be classified as “Biloxi Parrish Part II” and it has a sound reminiscent of an earlier time (not the 90s) that The Gaslight Anthem has successfully hinted at in their music throughout their previous work. What can I say, I’m a sucker for musical nostalgia that I never lived through. Is it weird that I wanted a band to invoke their inner Sam Cooke not their Nirvana? Who gives a shit? Maybe I was just happier in a past life in the 1950s than I was as a young teenager in a flannel shirt.
“Break Your Heart” isn’t a bad ballad. For some reason it reminds me of Tom Petty. And oddly a few Green Day ballads as well. Its simple, and it’s easy to listen to; seriously it’s a nice song, good work, guys. But for me it doesn’t compare to any of the slow songs from their previous albums: I would rank “Navesink Banks”, “Red at Night”, “White Jean & Blue T-Shirts”, Here’s Looking at You, Kid” and “National Anthem” all ahead of it. I’ve considered that I’m not being fair because I’m comparing everything from Get Hurt to their previous albums but….that’s what I did with Handwritten in 2012. Or American Slang before that. I still put those CDs on repeat in my car for weeks even if I liked the one that came before it more. There’s something about Get Hurt that I just don’t love. It sounds distorted and echoed, like you were listening to the band play these songs at a big concert where you were far enough away that you were hearing everything through a nearby speaker. And despite every song sounding like that, the music, especially the vocals, jump around in style so much that it doesn’t have a very cohesive flow to it. Sure it’s not a requirement, but does usually dissuade one from listening to an album from track 1 through 12 without hitting the next song button a few times. I love The Gaslight Anthem. And over time I think some of the songs from “Get Hurt” will become ones that I can’t wait to hear at their next show. After a week some of them are already growing on me a lot. But when you expect this much from a band and they disappoint you, you’re going to get hurt be adversely affected.
The Drink: Knob Creek on the rocks. Through a straw. In the next room.
Bake
Latest posts by Bake (see all)
- Ben Nichols @ The Turf Club, St. Paul, Mn 6/5/16 - June 10, 2016
- Houndmouth | From the Hills Below the City - May 29, 2016
- Sturgill Simpson | A Sailor’s Guide to Earth - May 15, 2016
[…] the past year. I was let down by The Gaslight Anthem’s Get Hurt for not meeting my admittedly high expectations while Against Me’s Transgender Dysphoria Blues, well, just wasn’t very good. But seeing them […]