"The 59 Sound" - The Gaslight Anthem, Review

• Artist: The Gaslight Anthem
• Album Title: The '59 Sound
• Record Label: Side One Dummy
• Release Date: 8/25/2008
• Rating: 9.0
• Bands Web Site: http://www.gaslightanthem.com/
• Sound: Punk Rock, Garage Rock, Pop
• Similar Artists: Against Me!, Dropkick Murphys, The Replacements, Bruce Springsteen

Drunkenly walking home across the Pulaski Bridge to Brooklyn one night last week, "Great Expectations" from the Gaslight Anthem's new album The '59 Sound came on my iPod and I was swept up in the band's wickedly sweet sound: a mix of punk energy with New Jersey, blue-jeans-and-bars classic rock. Perfect for an inebriated streetlamp lit walk back home. Along with lead singer Brian Fallon I belted out the chorus 'I saw daylights/Last night/and I dreamed about my first wife/Everybody leaves and I'd expect the same from you', no doubt startling a couple of my fellow late-night pedestrians, but I couldn't help it - I felt like the song was about me. Music is always better when it feels personal; with that in mind, I may be swept up in the honeymoon stage of love with The '59 Sound, so take my enthusiasm with a grain of salt(but just a grain, the band is really good).

The best songs from the tight, 12 song affair are energizing; full of head-bobbing riffs and dramatic melodies. It's a sweaty bar-basement show where you shout out the choruses2 as the band rips through their set. Fallon's soulful, often heartbreaking vocals sets the band apart from their peers(imagine the Hold Steady fronted by a 1980s Paul Westerberg). Fallon's lyrics drip with earnest('And Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand/I always kinda sorta wished I looked like Elvis/And in my head there's all these classic cars and outlaw cowboy bands/I always kinda sorta wished I was someone else' from "High Lonesome") and tell a unique story you can still relate to. I may have never been a Jersey boy wishing he was Johnny Cash or Elvis, but everyone has wished they were someone else at some point.

When a band has a winning formula, there is a danger of all the songs sounding the same. Luckily, Gaslight Anthem avoids that(like on a great AC/DC album) - you'll never find yourself thinking 'this song rocks, but which one is it?'(like on a good AC/DC album)3. In fact, there are so many good songs I had a hard time deciding which ones in particular to write about; '59 Sound could be a greatest hits album all by itself. Next Saturday night, download this album, grab a beer, a buddy, and enjoy.

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1This is the sound I think Brandon Flowers was going for, and largely failed to get, on Sam's Town. Guess you need a band from Jersey to channel the Boss.

2You will be singing: 'Don't wait too long to come home/My have the years of our youth passed on/Don't wait too long to come home/I'll leave the front light on' from "Miles Davis & The Cool" and 'Can I get a witness pretty baby/I still love Tom Petty songs/And driving old men crazy' from "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues".

3Yes, these are the only two kinds of AC/DC albums.

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