“Everything has chains.” That’s hard-learned wisdom from Brian Fallon, The Gaslight Anthem’s frontman, on “Selected Poems”, a latter-half album cut from the Jersey quartet’s latest album Get Hurt. It’s been a particularly hard year for Fallon, as he divorced from his wife of ten years. But he’s also had to deal with the aftermath of failed acts of self-sabotage like this, and ultimately come to grips with his and the band’s increasing popularity, as well as the persistent comparisons to a certain fellow New Jersey-an. Fans of the band are certainly rooting for a triumphant return after such personal turmoil, but they may have to wait. Get Hurt is a bloodletting that rarely feels cathartic, with its sound too often regressing to the mean of alt-rock radio as they try to break free of the sound they had so carefully honed over the previous four albums.
This is apparent from the get-go. Opener “Stay Vicious” sounds anything but, opting for big, generic sounding distortion that you might otherwise get with Stone Temple Pilots, or worse, Nickleback. It makes for perhaps the weakest song in the band’s entire catalogue. We hear ugly guitar tones like this again on “Stray Paper” and “Ain’t That a Shame”. It’s a bizarre choice for a band more than capable of making original sounding rock n’ roll while still paying respect to its traditions. Even as they made a play to follow in the footsteps of their heartland rock forebears on 2012’s Handwritten, Gaslight’s sound maintained a uniquely uplifting punk spirit even through those melancholic and bluesy numbers. Now when they try to open up to that sound, as with “1,000 Years” and “Red Violins”, it results in something that sounds tired and uninspired. The album as a whole suffers greatly from an overall sterile sound, which is hard to imagine considering Handwritten was recorded in the same studio (Blackbird Studios in Nashville) and sounds much more organic. I’m not about to speculate what producer Mike Crossey did to make things sound they way they do, but I’d encourage him not to do it again. Arrangements, by and large, are strikingly boring, particularly on “Get Hurt”, which is too reliant on an overly synthetic guitar sound, and latter-half cut “Selected Poems”, which, if not for the lyrically strong and apropos chorus might get lost by sounding too much like everything else. And speaking of latter-half cuts, the boredom increases, unfortunately, with “Break Your Heart”, which is not only the weakest ballad in the band’s discography,but also a huge disappointment considering the devastation that was palpable on Handwritten’s “National Anthem”. Much of Get Hurt lacks the aggression and energy Gaslight had on previous releases, and it is sorely missed. Alex Rosamilia’s guitarwork is excellent as always, but this batch of songs could really use his earlier-period style of maximalist leads. All of this results in an album that can be a slog to get through, at times.
Luckily, there is a three-song section that breezes by as a vision to what this album could have been. “Helter Skeleton” takes a melody that could have been used as an 80’s sitcom theme, beefs it up with some tremolo-effected guitar (and the album’s brief glimpse of Rosamilia’s old guitar style), throws what could have been a Beach Boys line in the chorus, and peppers in some dark matter (“something tells me I will die alone”) for what is arguably the strongest track on the record. Then comes the noir-ish “Underneath the Ground” which makes good use of a Fender Rhodes and Fallon’s rugged whisper to create an ominous feeling. Then comes the single “Rollin’ and Tumblin’”, which pairs Fallon’s Sink or Swim growl with his ‘59 Sound croon and captures his sadness with speed and clarity. These three songs manage to expand Gaslight’s sound in new ways while also not sounding, like, say, Staind. Get Hurt is most interesting when the band can be heard working in new directions with subtlety, and those moments are mostly collected here. The other thoroughly solid song on the album comes right at the end; “Dark Places” is reminiscent of The ’59 Sound’s “The Backseat” sonically while offering the brokenhearted viewpoint in maybe the most cathartic manner out of this batch of songs.
There are parts throughout the lesser songs on this album that are outright good, and it’s mostly driven by excellently written lyrics. “Selected Poems” has the aforementioned chorus. The pre-chorus in “Ain’t That a Shame” is killer: “learned the rules/ out with the wolves/ I’m vicious now baby, dumb and insatiable.” The final part of “1,000 Years” practically saves the entire song. The problem lies in that these particular sections are surrounded by lyrics that just don’t capture the emotion in any way that doesn’t feel somewhat clichéd. “Stray Paper’s” metaphoric device is too similar to that of Handwritten’s “Blood on the Page”. “Red Violins” has lyrics that belong on the cutting room floor of last album’s sessions, too. Too much introversion and too little of Fallon’s usually top-notch storytelling leaves large chunks of the album feeling bland. Ultimately, there’s little doubt that there is real pain behind these words, it just makes you wish there was more complexity to them.
A couple of stray thoughts: the bonus tracks are worth repeated listens. They show the band going in a more folksy direction, and it’s a good look for them, recalling The Band in some instances. Had they been split off from this release into a separate EP, it would make for a really good play; here it comes off disjointed from the regular tracks (obviously). Furthermore, this year has seen another major-label band with a punk background and a songwriter excising personal turmoil release a “different” record: Against Me! But where Laura Jane Grace was afforded the opportunity to cement her place as a punk pioneer just by releasing an album as great and frank and energetic as Transgender Dysphoria Blues, Fallon and The Gaslight Anthem found themselves at a similar place in their careers, but with an identity crisis, and without the chance to really have the same kind of impact.While it really wouldn’t make much sense for such excellent musicians to retread the same path they had on American Slang, The ’59 Sound, or Sink or Swim, it also doesn’t make much sense to veer off into prefab grunge when they had already shown signs of being great at punk, soul, and folk. Extending their sound further into any of those last three would have surely been more exciting (even in failure) than what Get Hurt actually was, but, “everything has chains.”
Kyle is a freelance audio engineer, composer, and writer with a fondness for the offbeat. He can be found on his bike in Central NJ attempting to maintain his punk rock ideals.