First impressions may count, but first impressions can also be horribly misleading. Take Long Island's BRAND NEW. Having missed their debut album from 2000, your reviewer came to "Deja Entendu" with only recent single "The Quiet Things That No-One Ever Knows" and was generally underwhelmed by that. A competent, but largely average Emo-core anthem, it was a bit of a shoulder shrugger, all in all.
So much for first impressions, though, as "Deja Entendu" is overall a far more impressive piece of work, with enough diversity to hold you attention and plenty of lyrical dexterity from frontman Jesse Lacey to ensure the underlying angst doesn't swamp everything.
Indeed, even with opening track, "Tautou" it's clear that Brand New don't site bands like Sigur Ros as influences for nothing. The track itself, while brief, has a big atmospheric pull and heaps on the mystery with Lacey muutering dark stuff like: "I'm sinking like a stone in the sea." Intriguing.
Admittedly, some of what follows morphs into more familiar guitar rock shapes, but it's not all horribly predictable. Take "I Will Play My Game Beneath The Spin Light": in less capable hands it could easily become whiny and turgid, but here Lacey's life-on-the-road lyrics are acutely well-observed (eg: "I wrote more postcards than hooks, I read more maps than books") and it's semi-acoustic setting ensures they're singing real deal Terra Firma Homesick Blues.
There's more, too. The slow, regretful "The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot" also adopts a wistful, semi-acoustic Dashboard Confessional-style approach, which is rather attractive in itself, while at a more challenging tangent there's the dark and predatory "Me.vs.Madonna vs.Elvis", which is much more than just a cool title and finds Lacey drawling some seriously scary lyrics (eg: "If you let me have my way, I swear I'll tear you apart" and "Let you fall for every empty word I say"). Ooh, chilly! Then there's "Good To Know That If I Ever Need Attention All I Have To Do Is Die", which - despite its' unwieldy and ultra-cynical title - is slow, dense and terse and builds to one hell of a climax.
|
There's a few rather more formulaic tracks, sure. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with "Guernica" and the aformentioned "The Quiet Things That No-One Ever Knows", but they don't realy threaten to stand out and - at least until the whole band crash in - "Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't" sounds painfully like a Placebo pastiche. One can only hope that wasn't deliberate.
Nevertheless,"Deja Entendu," is an intriguing Emo-core variation, with enough spikes, serrated edges and point blank refusals to be drawn down cliched blind alleys to make it all very much worthwhile. Whether their new, multi-million dollar deal with Dreamworks will hamper and neuter them artistically remains to be seen, but for now they're one of the better players in what can be a whiny, limp-wristed cousin of both Punk and great American power pop, so here's hoping for the best.
|
