The Gaslight Anthem: Handwritten Review

Album: Handwritten
Artist: The Gaslight Anthem
Genre: Rock

7.1/10





The Gaslight Anthem likes Bruce Sprinsteen.  I mean they “like like” Bruce Springsteen.  The Boss’ influence on Rock and Roll has been this: simple, straight up rock that gets a theme or point of view off clearly.  The Gaslight Anthem have placed this simple, yet powerful, influence at the forefront of their music, blending punk attitudes and styles with straight up rock instrumentation.  On Handwritten they tone down the punk aspect even more than on their last LP and deliver a group of songs more rooted in simplicity than ever before.

     The album starts off with a simple guitar line and melody that sounds like stripped down Gaslight.  On “45” a theme of listening and experiencing music is stated clearly.  “What’s your favorite song?” Brian Fallon sings, comparing life to an LP spinning on a turntable.  The title track begins with some cliché “WHOA OH!!”s and a more vocal, triumphant chorus.  The Springsteen influence comes out most clearly on this track, but it turns out to be a weaker track sadly, suffering from some major rock clichés.  “Here Comes My Man” takes an interesting lyrical turn, with Fallon singing a song about rejection, from the point of view of the rejecting woman.  The tones are punchy, yet soft, and marks a musical swell in the album, but some “ sha la la”s come out and it feels like its been done before, which it has.  The musical swell continues with Mulholland Drive: one of the coolest guitar riffs and solos Gaslight has ever done highlights the track.  There’s more passion in Fallon’s voice, and it continues to be strong over the next few tracks.  “Howl” picks up the tempo a bit, and I heard a bit of the punk influece that I kinda missed.  Fallon ‘howls’ through a megaphone for some vocal texture.  “Desire” has some more “whoa oh oh”s sadly.  “Mae” turns out to be one of the only ballads on the record.  The drums focus on a more tomtom-oriented beat and features one of my favorite lines of the record “We wait for kingdom come/With the radio on”.  The album ends on the acoustic figerpickin’ ballad “National Anthem” which isn’t a national anthem, but rather a song devoted to an “American love”.  It incorporates some strings for a very different, almost odd tone that is much different from the rest of the album.  Musically this album takes a larger page from rock history than punk, and features much more pronounced guitar work.  Lyrically I have to say this is definitely the weakest of Fallon’s poetic endeavors.  The themes are similar to past albums, but with weaker delivery.  Songs about family, music, lost loves, past loves, and found loves are all present and accounted for but with far less captivating power.  That said, the lyrics are still fine, and nothing is cringe worthy, I just expected a little more from Fallon.  Handwritten has some great moments, especially in the middle with tracks like “Mulholland Drive”, “Keepsake”, “Too Much Blood”, and “Biloxi Parish”.  Overall it’s a little hit or miss and definitely the worst Gaslight album, but the great thing about The Gaslight Anthem is that their worst record is still a good record.  7.1 gaslights anthemed out of 10.