Daisy: A ‘Brand New’ Brand New

Jesse | Sep 22, 2009

It takes only a brief moment into Brand New’s most recent album Daisy, 1 minute and 25 seconds to be exact, to realize that the first track’s somber operatic entrance is a misdirection. Daisy is not the much-needed, poetic declaration of musical change like Deja Entendu, or its more highly touted work of 2006’s The Devil and God Are Inside Me. Brand New elevates its music on its fourth studio album, brandishing shouts and screams just when main vocalist Jesse Lacey seemed content to lull fans with a graceful and subdued sound.

“Vices,” an excellent first track, presents a very unsettled Lacey, his voice never wanting to fall below a scream. The lone guitar shrieks and bounces along its own destructive path as if lead guitarist Vincent Accardi is possessed. It refuses to release listeners its raucous grasp.

The second track “Bed” brings back a familiar Brand New sound while taking a page from Nirvana. It is repetitive and slow, too re strained and different from “Vices” that the unexpected change in rhythm wants you to see what’s going on in the rest of the album. With lyrics like, “The champ goes down like a clown in the second round,” it is best that listeners do.

It’s obvious that Lacey has experienced grief in the three years since Devil. Fans won’t have to search long for self-deprecating, mostly dark tones embracing images of suicide and death. The band follows gloomily, often sounding like disharmonious pieces emphasizing torment’s wake, especially in “Gasoline” and “At The Bottom.”

Daisy’s sparkle disappears in “Be Gone,” which opens so well in its soulful acoustic guitar. And then, it plummets. It shows itself to be less artful and close to a recording gone awry, the words so equivocated one wonders how this even made into the final version of the album.

But thankfully, the record regains its momentum with the sing-scream patterns of “Sink,” especially when Lacey quips, “How darkly the dark hand met his end / He was withered and boney and exposed for a phony /But we need the words that he penned.” But Brand New finally comes together in “Bought A Bride,” the album’s best track. It shrieks and trudges along heavily, but never loses control or sight of its direction.

Daisy proves to be a good break from all the dance-y and overproduced rock coming out these days. For this alone, it’s successful.