New Jersey rockers The Gaslight Anthem’s fifth album, Get Hurt, covers a lot of bases. The opening track, Stay Vicious, blasts in with a stoner-approved sludge rock groove that segues into chiming indie rock choruses.
The band maintains their trademark raw drive, but deepens the mood with thoughtful tracks that reach toward anthemic ideas. They don’t get there, but the inspiration that drives the ideas is present on some songs.
Vocalist Brian Fallon sounds like he spent some down time with some Uriah Heep and Free vinyl and a beat-up electric guitar.
Songs like Helter Skeleton lose the expansive sound direction hinted at early on in the album and veer off to the safe haven of commercial alt-rock. This is the weak point of the record.
The interesting music on Get Hurt is on tracks that move in to fluid ideas that don’t settle into specific places. Red Violins runs on poetic vocal ideas that are boosted along by a clanging New Wave guitar-drum rhythm.
The weak material is on songs like Rollin’ and Tumblin’ — which doesn’t do either. It’s following a script on how to rock out — sounds full, but lacks real balls. They use the game show arena rock sound too often, (Dark Places), and that sound obscures biting songs like Selected Poems and Break Your Heart. The album straddles the fence between industry standard and rock band inspired.
– Dean Gordon-Smith is a Vernon-based musician who reviews new releases for The Morning Star.
