The Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten
Artist: The Gaslight Anthem
Album: Handwritten
Label: Mercury Records
Rating: 5/5
New Jersey’s got a little bit of a knack for producing tip-top music. Be it Sinatra, The Four Seasons, Sprinsteen, Bon Jovi or Whitney, the state often sneered at has more than punched its weight.
Trying to get into the pantheon of greats are The Gaslight Anthem, who after three fantastic albums are hoping to keep the train of critical praise going.
The New Brunswick band are back with their fourth album Handwritten, but can they keep that old school, rip-snorting sound that’s won over so many fans worldwide. The short answer is yes, with fantastic results.
Fallon’s gloriously gravelly vocals cement a really solid rock album, full of driving guitar riffs and cracking hooks. It may be simplistic and easy to equate them to fellow Jersey rockers Bon Jovi, but Handwritten itself sounds like something they could have put out towards the heights of their power.
It’s the rawness to Handwritten though that put’s it above the cleaner Bon Jovi. Brian Fallon’s vocal is brilliantly emotion filled, especially when he’s growling with almost throat scarring passion in Too Much Blood and Biloxi Parish.
The Gaslight Anthem once again nail their 70s inspired rock sound, with giant, swinging anthems and screaming guitars. From the thrilling opener 45 to the driving Mulholland Drive, Handwritten is an album that’s all the better for thinking rock and roll shouldn’t ever hold back.
It’s Mae and National Anthem that push the album over the cliff of greatness, both tender and magnificently written lyrically. The latter in particular is an absolutely touching, open nerve of a song. These two closing tracks bring the end to an emotionally charged record
The writing is fantastic throughout with the album’s title track standing out with the heart-rending lines Here in the dark I cherish the moonlight/ I'm in love with the way you're in love with the night/And it travels from heart to limb to pen.
With this being backed up by the rousing old school guitars and pounding percussion and Fallon’s gloriously gravelly vocal Heartwritten is rather heart to fault.
While it may not quite be up to the heady, heady heights of The ’59 Sound, Heartwritten is a slice of rock and roll as classically American as a bald eagle perched on a pick-up truck. Retro it may be, echoing Springsteen, Stewart and Petty, but that doesn’t stop Handwritten being a rip-roaring success.
The Gaslight Anthm – Handwritten is out now
FemaleFirst Cameron Smith
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