<< A Zoo Tale: Geese Losing Their Patience | Main | Happiness through destruction >> May 13, 2007 >> Brand New Religion I like to follow up on guilty musical pleasures from time to time, to see where the so-called emo sound has meandered to. Most bands predictably devolve into utter retardation (see: The Used) or slog through the same material without the catchy hooks that made it enticing the first time round (Taking Back Sunday, Thrice). Perhaps more interesting is the trend of moving from hearts to hard religion. Brand New's The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me and Cursive's Happy Hollow both get a little spiritual, or a lot spiritual. Cursive has always been a little out there, so songs about the epistemology of creation aren't that surprising: ("They say there was this big bang once, but the clergyman doesn't agree. There was this big bang once but it don't jive with Adam and Eve, original sin, idyllic garden, some talking snake giving apples away.") It just so happens that Cursive drop-drops a concept album critiquing organized religion alongside other contemporaries. Brand New, on the other hand, has a brief and furious history of spewing disdain for heartbreaking / shallow women: ("And even if her plane crashes tonight she'll find some way to disappoint me. Why not burning in the wreckage, or drowning at the bottom of the sea? Yes I still taste you, and thus reserve my right to hate you.") It's pretty venomous stuff, the soundtrack for a teenage breakup and subsequent burning of an ex's clothes in a steel trashcan. A homeless barbecue. All this cursing and brooding must've got to frontman Jesse Lacey, because The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me turns abruptly inwards and contemplative. The anger turns off like a faucet. Still selfish, Brand New seems to tire of facile females (and, perhaps, of relentlessly abusing them). It's now time for repentance, in a certain sense, and to take on the Big Questions in life. Such as, will I get away with fucking all these chicks, giving them chlamydia and then writing songs about how clueless and worthless they are? I'd be scared of God too. Still, the album reads more like a sour grapple with the supernatural than a glowing submission to the Almighty. In 'Jesus / Jesus Christ', Lacey wonders about the afterlife before concluding: "I know you're coming in the night like a thief Hilariously enough, Christian kiddies are crawling all over this tune as a sign of newfound faith. I am somewhat curious as to where they drew that assumption from, beyond the song's title, as it looks a lot to me like Brand New is sad and lonely and evidently ready to crucify Jesus a second time. And then sell the raw footage to Mel Gibson. Now these are still sketchy characters, but at least they're tackling the repercussions from a new angle. Regardless of how you read the song, it's somewhat more thought provoking than yet another drama-fest about teenagers drinking on an overpass, or a teenage car crash, or whatever. Fuck teenagers! Anyway, I find it interesting that the next step up the lyrical hierarchy from romance is often pondering one's existence. Too bad most bands never even take that first evolutionary baby-step. But what comes after that? Singing about unicorns and dragons? Prog rock? Posted by Chris at 01:08 AM >> Commentations (1)
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