Brand New

First things first: forget everything you thought you knew about Brand New. These are not the same men that wrote Your Favourite Weapon and Déjà Entendu. Well, they are, but figuratively speaking they're not the same. The members of Brand New had little contact with the outside world during the writing and recording process for the new album, aside from their cryptic website and their leaked demos. Some of this is apparently attributed to the hospitalization of lead singer Jesse Lacey for appendicitis. As the public, we have little insight into the change that has gone on in the hearts and minds of Brand New, but something tells me that the tiny modification in Lacey's abdominal cavity is minuscule compared to the change we've seen, heard, and will continue to see in the band. The similarities between The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me and their two former albums are few and far between, but the one that stands out the most is Lacey's distinctly sorrowful voice. Had I not known any better, I might have thought Lacey had been the mouthpiece for three different bands over the course of five years. However, "similar" doesn't mean the same. Lacey managed to turn the vocals knob from "whiney and shrilly" to "more controlled and varied" in the time between Weapon and Entendu, but for The Devil he cranked it up one more notch to "How every high school emo band will want to sound." Having heard the nine demos leaked onto the internet months before the album came out, I suppose I was anticipating a 50 minute album a la "Play Crack the Sky." Either that or they were trying to be The Cure. I suppose that's why bands don't like when their demos get leaked. Even the songs that made the actual full length ("Sowing Season (Yeah)", "Luca") only contain a handful of the original lyrics. But look at it this way; now you have two sets of lyrics to memorize/change your Myspace name to.