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Brand New's latest album, Daisy, hits stores this Tuesday, but its streaming right now at their Myspace page. I really like the album. After Deja Entendu set them up as an undeniably great rock band capable of fusing catchy melodies with dead-on lyrics that rang true, they seemed poised for their next album to make them huge. Perhaps worried about this, lead singer/primary songwriter Jesse Lacey indulged the least-commercial elements of Deja on the melancholy follow-up LP, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me. Remaining unpredictable, Daisy ignores all the groundwork laid by Devil and God, bringing back grunge music (of all genres) for a really heavy album with a lot of screaming, fierce guitars, and (as always) great melodies buried underneath. For a change, most of the songs on the album were written by guitarist Vinnie Accardi. Perhaps the change in writers explains the heavier tendencies, but the fact that the band switched main songwriters is another testament to how you can't put them in a box.
In today's "Do-Anything-For-A-Buck" methodology, even some Pitchfork-loved bands are playing it safe, producing album after similar album. Thank god for the small things: like whatever Brand New does next.
A full review of Daisy is coming soon. Here's an acoustic performance of The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot, a favorite of my friend James:
