The lead-off song and title track from The Gaslight Anthem's third album, American Slang is an upbeat slice of melancholy romanticism from the New Jersey band.
Though its pounding, anthemic beat shares and inspires the same desperate urgency as the songs on 2008's breakthrough record, The '59 Sound, the sound and sense of soul that is so important to this band shines through more than it ever has before. Yes, there's still a hint of the Boss-like bombast that everyone's so keen and eager to point out, but look beyond that to the roots and there's a world of music away from Springsteen waiting to be discovered beneath these chords and melodies.
Lyrically, American Slang sets the tone for the rest of the album, haunted as it is by a powerful sense of nostalgia, yet simultaneously fuelled by a strong desire to move out of and away from the past. Frontman Brian Fallon's gruff, ragged, bruised vocals and the lost, wounded nature of his lyrics conjure up a sad, wasted and wasteful world, where, despite best efforts and intentions, nothing good is ever allowed to stay. "I called for my father but my father had died," he sings, "while you told me fortunes in American Slang." A stirring, rousing and inspiring song that will leave you as equally sad as it will make you happy - all of both and none of one.
The Gaslight Anthem's Myspace.
The Gaslight Anthem's website.
8:20 AM | 17/06/2010
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