One would never accuse alternative rock band Brand New of following a formula. From their pop-punk, girlfriend-hating debut album Your Favorite Weapon, to their stylistically broadening, critically acclaimed sophomore release Deja Entendu, to their major label debut and plunge into the darkest abysses of their communal minds, the Long Island quartet constantly keep their fans guessing as to what sort of album will follow.
Their fourth album, Daisy, follows this tradition, and continues the descent into sinister, depressing, gut-wrenching gloom. There are practically no light moments in this album, but Brand New delivers an incredibly solid, innovative record, which displays the band at its most raw, passionate and despondent. The songwriting process has altered slightly from previous albums; instead of frontman and resident heartthrob Jesse Lacey being the main lyricist, guitarist Vin Accardi penned most of the tracks on Daisy. The band also has a new member, guitarist/keyboardist Derrick Sherman, and his presence only serves to tighten the music more. This is still the off-the-walls band we loved, although from the sound of Daisy, they may not be able to keep their sanity long enough to stay together much longer.
The album's opening song, "Vices," begins with a sound clip of "On Life's Highway," a gospel hymn written by Bertrand Brown, and then explodes into one of Brand New's most raw and dissonant songs. Between Lacey's unpolished screams and the creeping, aggressive guitar riff, one can feel the desperate state of the band, as if they are trying to crawl out of the hole of their career that they have dug for themselves.
The intensity continues on songs like "Sink," where Lacey sings of being too tired to hold onto someone any longer (the band, perhaps?). Biblical references are more subtle in this album than in The Devil and God, but there's nothing subtle about lines such as "You want to sink so I'm gonna let you/The fire snuck into your bedroom/Now I'm falling asleep to forget you."
The brutal attack heard in these songs, and others such as "Gasoline," are interspersed with slower, but no less brooding numbers. The second song "Bed" is like the evil twin of the track "Jesus Christ" in their last album, with melodic instrumentation and semi-hypnotizing repetition of the chorus.
The most bizarre moment in the album comes in the 90-second track "Be Gone." Already, one can barely tell half of what Lacey is screaming in the rest of the songs, but here is an interlude of only guitar and a distorted sound bite of Lacey speaking over it. The lyrics are thoroughly unintelligible, but by this point in Daisy, this doesn't seem too surprising.
This is not an album to listen to in hopes of being cheered up. This is the sound of five men drowning in a pool of their own creation, lacking the will to pull themselves up. The 'catchiest' song of the album, first single "At The Bottom," is just as somber and pessimistic as the rest of it.
With Daisy, Brand New confirms the claim that depression feeds creativity; they used it to make a mind blowing and genre-bending album. The closer, "Noro," ends with Lacey screaming, "I'm on my way out" before returning to the same sound clip of "On Life's Highway" that was heard in "Vices." If this does turn out to be Brand New's swan song, then they certainly managed to go out with a bang.
