The
Gaslight Anthem – American Slang
When The Gaslight Anthem released their second studio
album ‘The 59 Sound’ back in 2008 they
became hot property all over the world with many
major magazines claiming them to be the best new
band of the year and others rating their albums,
singles and live shows really highly and since then
they have gone from strength to strength and done
some very technical tour schedules which have seen
them play only a few shows at a time in each country
but supporting massive bands and playing massive
events such as Glastonbury, Hard Rock Calling and
the Reading and Leeds festival and in between the
hectic touring schedule they managed to find some
time to work on their much anticipated third studio
album ‘American Slang’.
‘American Slang’ is now here and
has just been released on SideOneDummy Records
and has already hit the top 20 of the UK album
chart within the first week of release which is
pretty impressive considering that just over two
years ago they were pretty much unheard of. The
main questions that everyone must be asking are
is ‘American Slang’ any good and was
it worth the wait; well the answers are yes and
no, read on to find out why.
I will start with the main disappointing thing
about the album and that is that only ten tracks
feature on the album, yes I know ten tracks make
up an album but when you have a band as hyped
and good as The Gaslight Anthem you kind of hope
for as many songs as possible and it becomes even
more disappointing when some of the songs on the
album have a bit of a filler feeling about them
and really don’t have that big old positive
feeling as the majority of the songs on ‘The
59 Sound’, luckily the positives totally
outweigh the negatives here and there are a lot
of enjoyable moments throughout ‘American
Slang’.
The album starts with the title track and current
single ‘American Slang’ the song does
happen to be one of the best sounding songs on
the album and really does feature ‘The 59
Sound’ feel which helped make The Gaslight
Anthem who they are today and put them where they
are today, the chorus is extremely infectious
and front man Brian Fallon’s vocals sound
better than ever.
‘Stay Lucky’ is another upbeat sounding
summer song that is going to have you singing
along especially during drunken summer barbecues
or summer festivals if you are lucky to head along
to a festival that The Gaslight Anthem are playing
at, the song once again features fantastic lead
vocals from Brian Fallon and an amazing guitar
solo that you are instantly going to fall in love
with.
‘Bring It On’ is a classic sounding
song which reminds me very much of Bruce Springsteen
who happens to be the artist that The Gaslight
Anthem are mainly influenced by these days, especially
after the various different support slots and
collaborations they have done on the live circuit.
The majority of the song’s on ‘American
‘Slang’ are really listenable but
as the album progresses and you get to the later
part of the album it does start to get a tad boring
and samey and that is really because The Gaslight
Anthem are not really offering anything new on
‘American Slang’ don’t get me
wrong song’s like ‘Boxer’ and
‘Orphan’ are pretty ace but then you
have ‘Old Haunts’, ‘The Spirit
Of Jazz’, and the toned down ‘We Did
It When We Were Young’ which all really
do fail to bring any real excitement or lasting
appeal.
Overall ‘American Slang’ is a decent
album release but when compared to ‘The
59 Sound’ it really isn’t the album
that myself and millions of others were really
expecting but this is the kind of thing that usually
happens after a band releases an album that is
classed as album of the year everywhere and it
tends to be hard to live up to peoples high expectations,
if you enjoyed ‘The 59 Sound’ you
are guaranteed to enjoy ‘American Slang’
but just don’t expect anything new.
4/5
Review by Trigger
Band
Members
Brian Fallon (vocals, guitar) Alex Levine (bass) Benny Horowitz (drums) Alex Rosamilia (guitar)
Track
Listing
1. American Slang
2. Stay Lucky
3. Bring It On
4. The Diamond Church Street Choir
5. The Queen Of Lower Chelsea
6. Orphans
7. Boxer
8. Old Haunts
9. The Spirit Of Jazz
10. We Did It When We Were Young
