Brand New

Okay so we're going to put saving the world on the back burner for a bit. This one's important. I'm talking about the rock group Brand New. I've never been a huge follower of the band but have enjoyed their music for as long as I've known about them. The album Your favorite weapon was always good. During high school I was into the punk feel and I liked to listen to their music every once in a while. When Deja Entendu came out it was a different story. I liked it when it came out, though it took a long time for me to realize just how epic the album was. After many more times listening to the album it became a work of art to me. Just as the Dark Side of the Moon stands out as probably the best album ever written (as I write that I bite my lip on making that claim against the Beatles' Revolver but this is a debate off topic.) Deja Entendu joins these albums in my opinion. I bring this up because I've recently been introduced to the group's following release, the Devil and God are Raging Inside Me. It was introduced to me as to be better than either of the previous titles, which is a claim I have not been able to back up. I would have listened to the album a couple of years ago when it was released but I happened to be on a two year religious sabbatical which kept me just about as out of the loop as it gets. Anyway I have to admit I did not like the album the first time I listened to it. I admit that it is very well done. It is a studio masterpiece but at first glance does not seem to have the emotional overtones as did the first album, and is also lacking an acoustic final track which I had determined to be typical of the group. It could be that I have not had enough time to really let the album soak in (I am borrowing the disc from a friend for a couple of weeks) or perhaps I just don't appreciate music like I used to. To try and refresh my appreciative juices I listened to Deja Entendu again tonight to see if I'd like that. I'm not sure if it's some sort of joke but someone must have thought it'd be funny to erase half of my iTunes purchased library before I returned from Guatemala so my last resort was a seven inch long playing vinyl record I bought off a friend several years ago. My time away from home also must have affected the needle on my turntable, leaving a less than picture perfect impression on my ears. The stereo channels were a bit off and I felt the levels were peaking out a bit - but even with all the distortion I still found myself in a more thoughtful mood than I've been in for years. The album is pure genius! The group has a way of presenting something entirely new with each release and I have to say, I love it. I dare say that Deja Entendu is the best album since OK Computer and quite possibly one of the best albums ever written.