Guitars, Drums, Tones, and Saxophones

The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang

So, the Gaslight Anthem. Through some pretty relentless touring- not to mention some killer songs- they became darlings of the underground punk community. At least, the portion of said community that spent hours and hours hitting refresh to drop witty comments on Punknews.org. Personally, over the course of a year, (2008) I saw them go from opening for the Loved Ones, headlining a 90 person room, headlining a 600 person room, and finally opening on a national tour for Rise Against, Alkaline Trio, and Thrice. During that year, they managed to release the much-lauded The ’59 Sound and expand their audience significantly. Backlash, sell outs (except they’re still on an indie, kids), etc. They kept at it, touring hard, building a fanbase, playing with Bruce Springsteen in the UK. Crazy.

Now, in 2010, they’re dropping their follow-up to The ’59 Sound, the greatly-anticipated American Slang.

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The Gaslight Anthem - Sink or Swim

The Gaslight Anthem released one of 2008′s best albums, The ’59 Sound. That was their sophomore effort, and is one three releases of new material they’ve put out in their short time together (the others being this, Sink or Swim, and the Señor & the Queen EP). So let’s take a trip in the Wayback Machine to the long-forgotten year of twenty-ought-seven, when a young quartet of New Jersey punks released their debut LP.

Coming out of the Jersey punk scene, these guys have a sound that’s reminiscent of bands like the Bouncing Souls; muscular guitar work, somewhat gruff vocals, and a heavy sense of melody. The Souls are a clear influence on the band, but so are more diverse artists. Bruce Springsteen, New Jersey’s favorite son, stands out most. The Clash are also revered by these guys; the song “Ida Called You Woody, Joe” is a tribute to the late, great Joe Strummer.

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Various Artists - All Aboard: A Tribute to Johnny Cash

Now, I think we can all agree that tribute albums are hit-or-miss affairs, at best; often, the albums are terrible, and offer no compelling evidence to justify their existences. How many times have you listened to a tribute album to an artist you like and not come away thinking “I’d have rather had this as a ‘Greatest Hits’ package?” I bet it’s a handful. We’re not even going to talk about genre/era “tributes,” since more often than not those are just “hip” bands making ironic covers that they think are HI-LARIOUS. (Notable example: the late’90s Metaliska album. That shit was so good)

And it’s with that in mind that one enters into this, Anchorless Records’ (based out of Allston, MA!) tribute to Johnny Cash. They’ve assembled a punk-centric collection of artists like the Bouncing Souls, the Gaslight Anthem, Chuck Ragan (of Hot Water Music), MxPx, the Loved Ones, and others, along with local favorites gone national, the Dresden Dolls. So the talent is strong, not a bunch of rookie bands looking to make a name for themselves with an ironic cover of a classic. Remember how well that worked out for Alien Ant Farm?

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The Gaslight Anthem - The

If you’re at all tuned into the punk world, this has to have been one of the mostly hotly-anticipated releases of 2008, perhaps second only to the new Dillinger Four record.

And with good reason; in 2007, New Jersey’s the Gaslight Anthem delivered one of the year’s surprise hits with their debut LP, Sink or Swim. As I understand it, they had no recorded output up until that point, so their acclaim had come based solely on word-of-mouth and a killer live show. Then the album dropped, and it sent shockwaves through the scene. They capped off 2007 by opening for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones on night 1 of the 10th Hometown Throwdown in Boston, MA. (more…)