Brand New- Daisy

Brand New-Daisy
8.2
DGC/Interscope/Procrastinate! 2009

Brand New has become one of my favorite bands in the past couple months. I bought their debut album "Your Favorite Weapon" from a suggestion from a friend, and i loved it. Every song is solid. Next I bought their 2003 effort "Deja Entendeu," which was hard for me to get into at first but i grew to love it almost as much as Your Favorite Weapon. I have yet to buy "the Devil & God Are Raging Inside Me, so i can't tell exactly how there music has changed through the years. When I first heard that 'Daisy' was coming out i was pretty excited and listened to the first single "At The Bottom." At first listen I thought it was awful. I ended up pre-ordering Daisy anyhow (it came with some extra goodies too)
I received "Daisy" 4 days before it's release. The first thing I thought of when i put it in was Fugazi. everything was like Fugazi. The short song names, the almost avant-garde art+pictures in the fold out, the b&w fisheye photo of Jesse and even the first song, Vices sounded like Fugazi. After the first listen to the album i was totally un-impressed. everything was different. The fun, pop/punk of sonfs like "Jude Law and a Semester Abroad" from Your Favorite Weapon was gone. After i spent about a week with "Daisy" i realized how different, can also be good.
The first track starts off with 1 minute and 20 seconds of an old sing-songy piano song that was obviously sampled from something recorded over half a century ago. I was surprised when the actual song starts with a hardcore emo sound. To me it still sounds like Fugazi. The next track, "Bed" sounds a bit like "Jesus Christ" from their last album. Previously, I had said that at first i hated At The Bottom. The country style vocals that Jesse was singing really didn't work with me. After multiple listens it's one of my favorites. "You Stole" is a nice 6 minute song that starts off with an older Brand New sound and turns into something that fits more with the tone of this album. The following track "Be Gone" is one of the strangest songs that i've heard in a while. It sounds like an old blues tune and has unbearably distorted vocals, which skip like a not yet loaded YouTube video."Sink" is a pretty awesome song filled with dynamics that vary from screaming to almost whispering. The title track is pretty nice and and features some drum machine, interesting guitar effects and even a little spoken word piece from what appears to be a little boy. The album ends with "Noro," a more depressing track in which Jesse sings he's on his way to hell. It also has a great bassline and reverbed drums. it ends with a minute and 20 seconds of the same old song that Vices begins with and is a nice way to bookend the album.
These guys really have a sound of their own. I haven't heard a band quite like them. I'm not even quite sure what genre to put them under, whatever genre it is, it's great. What these guys are doing is totally original, it's fantastic, it's Brand New.

-Eliot Larson, September 26th, 2009.