Wesley Fenlon | Not with a bang but a whimper.

A lot of times, when I hear people talk about how much a band has matured, I mentally roll my eyes and nod in vague agreement.  I hear this in conversation about bands pretty frequently, and most of the time I’m not so sure what it, y’know, means.  There are plenty of bands that radically change their musical style over the years, or become more politically or socially aware.  Or maybe they just improve as musicians.  Mostly, though, it’s a way to say a band is good–or better than they used to be–while coming off as someone in the know.

But now I either have to throw out that cynical view, or lump myself in with the guys and gals who want to look intelligent and hip.  And it’s Brand New’s fault.

In my senior year of high school, I was forced to endure the punk and “emo” music played by a friend of mine on a near-daily basis (sup Steven).  At the time, I disliked nearly all of it (my tastes have since broadened, but we’ll get to that in a bit).  Every so often, though, there was a song that stuck out as tolerable.  Or, dare I say it, good.  One of these, though I didn’t know the name at the time, was “The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows” by Brand New, off their sophomore album Deja Entendu (2003).

Fast forward a few years–about eight months ago, I started listening to Brand New, a band I would have once passed off as emo, a word in my mind synonymous with a lot of unsavory terms.  “Shit” would be a good example.  So I listened to Your Favorite Weapon, their first album, released in 2001.  In general, I wasn’t really impressed.  I was starting to warm to the vocal styles and typical lyrical material found across the emo genre, but not much about Your Favorite Weapon stood out to me.

Then there was Deja Entendu.  I recently heard the album described as the perfection of emo, and I couldn’t agree more.  The angst is there in spades, but it’s never annoying.  Love, sex, fear, anger–all the emotions you could possibly have coursing through you as a teenager are represented here in songs that are both catchy and evocative.  It’s heavy stuff, but the instrumentation is so powerful that it’s easy just to be absorbed by the sound without being too bogged down in the gravity of the lyrics.  Jesse Lacey took the emo genre, poured himself into it, and then took it out of the oven–consider it done.

Then there’s The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me.

I don’t even know what this album is.  It’s not emo–or at the very least, it’s not your older brother’s emo.  It’s phoenix-from-the-ashes emo, and the “alternative” tag probably fits it better than anything.  More than any album I’ve ever heard, The Devil and God shows an incredible maturation from its predecessor.

We’ll start with the lyrics.  Emotionally, this album is even more powerful than Deja Entendu.  But it’s different.  The teen angst is gone, replaced by something more nebulous.  The longing and the pain are still present, and the development is easier to feel than it is to describe.  Lacey’s voice has also improved, and manages to maintain the angsty emo edge while sounding far more mature and haunting.  He may still be searching for answers, but he’s not the same man he was when Deja Entendu was released.  Lacey says more about himself in “Sowing Season” than I really could: “I am not your friend. I am just a man who knows how to feel.”

The entire album is incredible, but the first four songs are especially powerful.  If you haven’t heard “Sowing Season,” “Millstone,” “Jesus,” or “Degausser,” consider yourself deprived.  Putting aside the fantastic lyrics, The Devil and God fucking explodes instrumentally.  The guitar sound is hard-driving and especially unique.  “Sowing Season” establishes a common technique used throughout the album, as songs often build from a soft, vulnerable starting point to a blaring, wailing finish.  “Jesus,” which stays pretty mellow, nevertheless features an incredibly memorable and recognizable guitar riff.  You’ll know it when you hear it.

Guitarist Vincent Accardi doesn’t deserve all the credit, of course.  The percussion is absolutely fantastic, and The Devil and God will be a slice of heaven for bass-lovers out there; the album’s lower-end is rich and really drives quite a few of the songs.  A couple songs on the album are nealy entirely instrumental, but maintain–or exceed–the intensity of the rest of the album.  The use of a choir, as well as ambient noises and sound bites in some tracks add to the sense of dischord and internal emotional struggle that shapes the entire album.  It’s not as abstract as Pink Floyd, but the instrumentation and background noise do a lot to add to the complexity and abiguity of the album’s sound.

Their second album perfected a genre; their third defied it, creating something incredibly distinct and complex in the process.  The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me shattered the mold.  Whatever Brand New does next, I can’t wait to hear it.  I have a feeling it will, once again, defy my expectations.