So I thought I’d write another review, seeing how I’m on the contributor page and I haven’t hardly contributed since last I rambled about an outdated horror flick, what, a month ago?
(Note: I just edited out about 200 words with more half-baked review philosophy. You’re welcome. In short: I’m probably only ever going to write about things I like.)
Starting with this EP that came out earlier this year via iTunes. It’s called Señor and the Queen by New Jersey band The Gaslight Anthem. It’s the follow-up to their debut album “Sink or Swim” which I can’t seem to find anywhere (including stores!). This is the first in a series of reviews called “Great Music Never Featured on Pitchfork Media.” Really though, it could just as easily be called “Cause for concern that my pop-punk phase isn’t a phase.”
Not that The Gaslight Anthem plays pop-punk, really. Brian Fallon’s gruff, charismatic singing and the bombastic guitar and drum backing could be punk, but the production gives it a fresh sound. It’s never abrasive, and oddly homey. As for pop’s half of the hyphenate, it’s not. This is punk rock if anything, with a dose of soul.
At just 11 and a half minutes and 4 songs, I can spare a few words about each:
The EP opens with the title track, Señor and the Queen. With five beats of the drum and a drawn out chord strummed, the song begins proper. These are the kind of songs that are wordy in a good way, that demand to be sung-along-to and that race you to the finish. The song starts fast but the tempo shifts about, and Fallon’s voice gamely navigates the tricks and turns.
On the next track, “Wherefore Art Thou, Elvis?” there are some of my favorite lyrics on the album. Check it out:
Now I got scars like the number of the stars, my head’s full of vipers. I got the dust of the desert in my bones, and they’re coming through the amplifiers.
But you gotta hear it. Here’s another tasty sample:
Walking in my old man shoes and my scientist heart. I got a fever and a beaker and a shot in the dark. I need a cadillac ride, I need a soft summer night. Say a prayer for my soul, señorita.
It’s got this great sense of world-weariness and americana (with a good dose of mexicana thrown in, with the constant use of señor and señorita, and the lyric from gorgeous closer “We like our choruses sung together / We like our arms in our brothers’ arms / Call every girl we ever met Maria / But I only love Virginia’s heart.”) But I’m getting ahead of myself…
On track three, “Say I Won’t (Recognize)” he sings an ode to the great american party, but hidden within is a ballad to this girl (named Maria, naturally) who he’s trying to get to come with him. In an interview, Fallon said the EP is “just about summertime in New Jersey and it’s about kids experiencing summertime. You know that weird thing that happens as soon as the weather gets hot and everyone goes crazy and starts going outside and there’s those parties that happen and carnivals everything like that-it’s just about that. It’s almost this romantic view of how life should be when you’re young.” And it is on this song that this is most evident. He sings “Come on out Maria and lose the tragic / Come on out Maria and we’ll show you some magic / Meet on the warm sand and waltz out twilight / and watch the carnival lights explode.” At first it’s a rollicking party song (which, ironically, probably wouldn’t play so well at parties…) with Fallon singing straightforwardly “We’re having a party, everybody swinging” at the beginning, but only with The Gaslight Anthem would that same song end with the lyric “Don’t make me dance all night alone.”
So to recap, the first three tracks are badass sing-along anthems with their “heart on their jeans,” and that brings us to the final song, “Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts.” This song is just magic. It’s not quite the requisite softy ballad, though I can imagine it being unfairly pegged as such. They really are all softy ballads, this one’s just the prettiest. He sings the chorus like it’s a future classic lyric, and the truth is that I kind of believe him. (“Still we sing with our heroes, 33 rounds per minute / We’re never going home until the sun says we’re finished / I’ll love you forever if I ever love at all / With wild hearts, blue jeans, & white t-shirts”)
So there you go. It’s a fair 4 bucks for a solid EP you can listen to over and over, and if you come to love it like me, go ahead and anticipate their new full-length album “The ’59 Sound” which comes out in a few weeks. Thanks for reading.
-Max Jacobson
I Ate My DVD Collection 
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