Review: Sink or Swim -- The Gaslight Anthem
Last month, for the first time in 21 years, I got together with my 8th grade classmates. It was a good reunion. I saw guys and girls that I hadn’t laid eyes on since the last post-graduation party in the summer of 1988. It was a reunion devoid of the discomfort that reunions commonly elicit. My classmates and I shared stories, photos of our families, tales of the people that weren’t able to make it that night. It was a great time by all measures, and at the end of the evening I was sure that the calls to “do this again soon” wouldn’t ring hollow.
Recovering the next day – who knew those guys could drink like that? – my thoughts turned inward. I pondered my transition from an awkward, unsure and insecure boy, through my fun-loving twentysomething years with few cares and boundless possibility, to a suburban dad with a steady job, a wife and kid, and a comfortable home on a pretty piece of property.
What struck me more about being “old,” more than anything, was the lack of urgency in life. On reflection, it seems that as we grow and mature, we trade excitement for stability, risk for complacency. And above all, we begin to sacrifice discovery for the comfort of the known and familiar. Few and rare, it seems, are my peers that have retained their daring and impulsiveness.
This, of course, is a crying shame. What made my youth exciting was the newness, the freshness. All of the firsts: First love. First broken heart. First time I felt real danger, and the first time I felt wrapped in security that didn’t come from home. First time I saw new life, and the first time real loss touched my adolescent soul. The reckless abandon and the thrill of rebellion. Even the discomfort and awkwardness, and the feelings of isolation and loneliness.
I miss those thoughts and feelings. Sure, I’ve seen a lot in the years since then, and I’ve had experiences that I could have only dreamt about back then. But the firsts. The firsts…
Like in the summertime when we first met/I’ll never forget, don’t you forget/These nights are still ours.
– “Boomboxes and Dictionaries”
Sometimes, all it takes is a voice to breathe life into those old memories, to put a spark to youthful idealism…
We are the last of the jukebox romeos/We are romantics by the light of the four winds/We came to sing out a chorus, reinvent the good times/Bring it all back home again.
– “We Came to Dance”
And the urgency…
And then I heard it like a shock, from my skull to my brain/I felt my fingertips tingle and it started to rain/When the walls of my bedroom were tremblin’ around me/His ramshackle voice over attack of a blues beat.
– “I’da Called You Woody, Joe”
I’m not much of a believer in coincidence. Call it what you will, but I think this life can give you what you need when you need it. And so it goes with Sink or Swim, the debut from The Gaslight Anthem. Released in 2007, but unknown to me until this winter, this album has been more of a revelation than any disc I’ve had in years.
Their sophomore effort, The ‘59 Sound came highly recommended, punk-pop fusion with the kind of songwriting that my home state is known for – honest, blue-collar songs of love and loss. It’s a great disc, it really is. But it’s got that polish to it, that smoothed-out sound. It’s strong, but it lacks urgency.
Sink or Swim, by comparison, grabs you from the opening chords and doesn’t let go. Behind the solid rhythm section of bassist Alex Levine and drummer Benny Horowitz, lead singer and songwriter Brian Fallon pulls you into a steamy world of romantic punk kids, old souls grappling with love and loss, pain and redemption, and the struggle to find their place.
If this sounds like the back story to “Jungleland,” it’s no accident. Fallon embraces the Jersey Shore sound, crafting an homage to the old beat-up cars, dark misty roads, and a handful of archetypical girls named Maria and Mary. But rather than coming off as cloying or dated, he and guitarist Alex Rosamilla put an electric charge into the songs, freshening the old E Street themes with a decidedly modern thrust.
All of this is, of course, exactly what I didn’t realize I’d been needing to hear, until I heard it. It’s the urgency I’ve been missing, the sense of the now.
We’re much too young of men/To carry such heavy heads/And tonight for the first time/It felt good to be alive.
– “Drive”
I think that sometimes it takes the perspective of youth to remind me why things are important, to renew the passion, and to set me straight.
Its alright man, I’m only bleeding man, stay hungry stay free and do the best you can.
– “We’re Getting a Divorce, You Keep the Diner”
