January is usually a slow month for new releases, but it’s the perfect time to catch up on music that may have slipped through the cracks during 2008. One CD from last year that may have flown under your radar is “The ’59 Sound,” the sophomore effort from Gaslight Anthem.
Hailing from New Brunswick, N.J., the quartet specializes in detailed storytelling and raw guitar emotion. While the band normally gets lumped into the punk/ska bucket, it’s not the same abrasive three-chord clatter that quickly becomes tiresome. Thanks to a streak of Americana roots in its music, the band has even received a fair amount of accurate comparisons to a New Jersey neighbor named Bruce.
The first thing that jumps out of “The ’59 Sound” is the Celtic backbeat of groups like Big Country and The Alarm. There’s definitely a punk undertone to most of the tracks, but the Gaslights prove they can stretch out on the dreamy “Film Noir” and the U2-like “Even Cowgirls Get The Blues.”
This band proudly wears its influences on its sleeve and tosses in references to the rock ’n’ roll history books all over the album. In addition to the CD’s title (itself a reference to “the day the music died” in 1959), the band namedrops artists from Elvis to Miles Davis to Tom Petty. Gaslight Anthem’s sound is exemplified with “Here’s Looking At You, Kid,” a song that sits comfortably between the melancholy guitar of Dire Straits and the pent-up Saturday night energy of The Gin Blossoms.
Lyrically, the songs weave complex stories of love and heartache, along with the quiet desperation of feeling lost in a small New Jersey town. On “High Lonesome,” leader Brian Fallon tries to cope with the boredom by singing, “I always kinda sorta wished I looked like Elvis / I always kinds sorta wished I was someone else.” His gritty vocals may be drenched with unnecessary reverb, but the sandpaper delivery is especially appropriate for numbers like “Meet Me By The River’s Edge,” with its repeated refrain of “No retreat / no regrets.”
The band may look and sound like Springsteen’s greasy little nephews, but at the end of the day, Gaslight Anthem is the real deal, and “The ’59 Sound” is a superb way to kickstart 2009.
Rating: W W W W
