Chords for Brand New - Science Fiction ALBUM REVIEW

Hey everyone, Branthony Nutano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review
of Brand New's return record, Science Fiction.
This is the latest full-length LP [Am] from New York
rock band, Brand New.
Long [N] considered to be one of the best bands in the emo scene, although the band
stylistically is much more than that.
It's kind of disingenuous to just simply label them as an emo
band.
In fact, when they were just an emo and a pop punk band, that's truly when Brand New was
at their worst.
Their best albums also incorporate elements of post-hardcore, acoustic and alternative
rock, indie rock, packing all of these styles into these very passionate, well-crafted albums
from start to finish.
And honestly, I even like the experimental and abrasive turn the band took
on their last album in 2009, Daisy, which in my opinion is a little underrated.
The band has
essentially dropped three very good albums in the 2000s and have been in the midst of a studio album
silence ever since.
Until last year when fans were hit with news of the band getting back together
and writing new music, and that caused excitement, understandably, because I could really only imagine
Brand New coming back together unless they were going to add something that was essential to their
discography.
And Science Fiction certainly does feel like a worthy addition to the band's musical
canon.
It's a chilly, despondent, very ghostly album.
Dynamically, the devil and god, but the lows, the
subtle lows of this record dig even further into like a very dark, emotional abyss.
Mostly thanks to
tracks like 137 and Desert, Let Me Up, the very moody intro to the song Same Logic.
Even with the
heavy guitars and the kind of Queens of the Stone Age style vocal harmonies that are very tight,
very sweet, very catchy on the song Out of Mana, which have kind of a devilish quality to them that
I think is kind of specific to this album and Brand New's catalog.
It's also worth noting this is the
band's longest album to date at 61 minutes, but still in the midst of all of this long-winded gloom,
the band still finds ways to work in some pretty anthemic tracks like the song Same Logic slash Teeth
that I mentioned earlier, which reaches an incredible instrumental climax.
One of the few
spots on the album where you actually get any scream vocals that kind of call back to the band's
past couple of albums and their emo and post-hardcore influences.
Also, the song Can't Get It Out, which
sounds like this mid-paced, powerful, mid-90s alt-rock power ballad.
_ The lead vocal melody as
the guitars sort of ascend with these heavy pounding chords is so amazing and so sticky,
so passionate.
Easily the most emotionally stirring spot on the album.
However, the bulk of the record
is really taken by these somewhat quieter and more subtle cuts.
They're very dark, they're very
sparkly, which is perfectly fine.
That is if the band's writing and performances are enough to
convince you on these songs.
I, however, am not completely sold on a lot of these tracks.
I mean, for sure,
most of them, if not all of them, are well mixed and assembled and structured, but what a lot of
these tracks boil down to are just some very middling, alternative, and acoustic rock that
seem almost like they could have been written 20 years or so ago, and most of them don't really
deliver much of anything that feels all that memorable or exciting to me outside of an almost
mandatory climax that some of these songs have to reach in order to justify the first three or four
minutes of frozen, bleak rock music.
Tracks like Waste and 137 come to mind.
And lead vocalist
Jesse Lacey, his singing on this album seems a little less distinct, in my opinion.
Less gripping
than usual.
I mean, he's never been one of the most unique singers as far as rock music in the 2000s
goes, but at least the emotion of his performances on Deja were captivating.
Here, instead, on this
new record, most likely to fit with the very low-key vibe of the album, he's playing it super flat,
and I'm not exactly sure if that was the best way to sell these songs.
Like, Could Never Be Heaven,
or the intro and outro tracks of the record, which just slowly fall into the background for me.
The lack of energy coming through on Jesse's singing seems even more apparent on louder cuts
like No Control, where the band just kind of sounds like some unenthusiastic, post-grunge group doing
their best Nirvana impression.
Which is one of many moments on the album, strangely enough, that
sounds like some kind of cleaner, moodier, more pristine take on some of the alternative rock of
the 90s.
Which has certainly been an influence on the band's music before, but on this one it seems
like a really weird combination.
This record is simultaneously very cold and very modern, but also
at some points feels like an exercise in 90s nostalgia.
Occasionally, some of these quieter
cuts do get graced with a more passionate vocal.
The song Desert, for example.
Some of the harmonized
background vocals on that track really do make the song what it is.
But even though some of the
vocals on this thing are kind of lackluster, the band does bring quite a bit of instrumental variety
to this record, so it's not like they're really kind of lacking on that front.
Like the droning,
kind of distorted guitars, and the airy, almost Mellotron-ish keyboards on the song Waste.
Or the
somewhat bluesy guitar licks all over the song 451.
You know, in its entirety, this album is very
listenable, and after multiple listens I would even say that a lot of parts of it are memorable.
Even the refrain on the least attention-demanding track on the entire album, The Closer,
is somewhat sticky.
Ultimately, the issue for me with this album is that I'm not really feeling
much of it.
It's well put together, everything sounds very balanced, and there's not a single
track on here where I could say the band literally is doing nothing and is merely just phoning it in.
But maybe this album is a band maturing to the point where they've kind of lost that original
spark or bite that made them appealing to their fans in the first place, at least to a degree.
Because a lot of the time I think my reservations on this album sit with the tracks where the band
is really taking a risk going in this very dreadful, fearful, very melancholy direction,
which certainly seems to be the case when you look at some of the lyrical and implied themes of this
album.
Sadness, loneliness, paranoia, mental illness.
I almost get the sense that the album's
takeaway is that there's nothing scarier than one's own mind.
And maybe I'm reading too much
of the album, I don't really know.
I mean, it's a concept that seems like it's coming through to me,
it's a concept I agree with, but for whatever reason it's just not really hitting me.
Because
a lot of these softer cuts to me don't feel super despondent, they just feel really safe.
The songs are implying the depths of emotional hell, but I don't feel like I'm being taken there.
And that's pretty much what's holding me back from going absolutely crazy about this record,
even though if there are a lot of technical and fundamental elements to it that I think are really
good, very quality.
But the [F#] emotional presentation and performance just really aren't 100% there.
I'm feeling a strong 6 to a light 7 on this thing.
Transition.
Have you given this album a listen?
Did you love it?
Did you hate it?
What would you rate it?
You're the best, you're the best,
what should I review next?
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