![]() ![]() The album expresses doubt in an authentic way and ruminates on it, often shouting it out. “I know you think that I’m someone you can trust,” Lacey sings, “but I’m scared I’ll get scared / and I swear I’ll try to nail you back up.” This song, the first time I heard it, gutted me, especially the moment when the singer worriedly warns Christ: “I know you’re coming for the people like me / but we’ve all got wood and nails…” Honestly, it still guts me. While most of the song, a direct address to the son of God, could come across as snark, the Millennial insincerity that fuels Twitter, the ending provides a moment of clarity. We both rebelled for real.Īmid the mix of instrumental interludes and hard-hitting rock, including the eight-minute masterpiece “Limousine,” the song that sticks out on The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me is “Jesus Christ.” It starts out with that simple, repetitive guitar riff, which rings out in smooth, reverberating tones, unlike the distortion-heavy leads on other tracks. The third album broke free of the pattern. The period, the music, is full of youthful angst and artifice, leading to a larger crisis. I associate Deja Entendu and Your Favorite Weapon with my own fake rebellion. Though I couldn’t understand their reasons why, I could see, for the first time, that something truly subversive hid in Brand New’s music. That song was one of the most radio-ready tracks of the year-of emo music, maybe ever. “Maybe put on Blink-182 again,” his mom pleaded, “or Eminem.” “I can’t take the screaming,” said his dad, even though Brand New is pretty mild compared to Emery or From Autumn to Ashes or similar bands we listened to then. No more Brand New for the rest of the trip. However, somewhere near the Ohio border, in the middle of “The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows,” they asked-no, demanded-that we change it. The van had been retrofitted with a multi-disc changer, and my friend’s parents were usually very lax about letting us choose the tunes. But in the Vandura on the way to Cleveland, I could wear whatever I wanted-listen to whatever I wanted. As youth worship leader, I had a reputation to keep. “You’re different,” my parents would say about our clothes and our music, “just like everyone else who shops at Hot Topic.” They’d refuse to let me leave the house wearing black on black, since the Bible said to avoid even the appearance of evil. Into the tops of our baseball caps, we screwed silver spikes-also bought at shopping malls-to be unique, to be true individuals. A friend’s parents drove him, me and another guy from Indianapolis to Cleveland in their early ’90s GMC Vandura.īack then, we wore black T-shirts with red letters and the metal-studded belts and bracelets of the variety that young rebels buy at shopping malls. While it was catchy, I didn’t notice anything too extreme until a trip to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Just months later, the band released Deja Entendu. This was freshman year of high school, and “Jude Law and a Summer Abroad,” playing over and over on my anti-skip disc player, made so much sense. My first taste of Brand New arrived on a black-nail-polish-decorated mix CD from a girl whose heart I’d eventually break. While the band’s first two albums, Your Favorite Weapon (2001) and Deja Entendu (2003), as well as the 2009 followup, Daisy, scream of the era in which they were made, this one ignored many emo hallmarks and as a result retains a timeless individuality. The album signaled a departure in sound and subject for the band. With a title like The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me, it’s pretty obvious that faith will be important, but it’s not everything. The sower spreads seeds of faith across his land, but only those that land in good conditions, free of rocks and weeds and tough soil, are able to sprout. “Takes a while to grow anything before it’s coming to an end, yeah.” Lacey, who was raised in a religious family and attended Christian school, is no doubt referring to the parable of the sower. “Time to get the seeds into the cold ground,” the lyrics say. The first track, “Sowing Season (Yeah),” begins quietly-Jesse Lacey’s vocals just a whisper, the solitary guitar a mere hum-before exploding into a mourning waltz. That, however, is not what the band brought to the table with its third album. By that time, I knew what to expect-straightforward mid-aughts rock with pop punk undertones and intense, passionate vocals. But I did love the Long Island emo rockers before The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me landed on November 20, 2006. I wasn’t into Brand New before it was cool. ![]()
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