Untitled

[kolttonen]

i'm at the point in my annual death cab re-listen where i start looking at zooey deschanel like she is my ex

[kolttonen]

Sometimes I'm having a normal day and then I remember that picture of gabe saporta and mikey way lol

[kolttonen]

Brand New's Bought A Bride - about becoming a man

It seems Brand New's 2009 record Daisy has both haters and devoted lovers. I doubt many would pick Daisy as their favorite Brand New album, but its uncompromising sound and almost tone-deaf expression has its fans.

Looking back, Daisy was one of those records that a band has to make after their masterpiece - just to get the juices flowing again (or in Brand New's case, to let the juices simmer down for another 8 years). Daisy is their Kid A. It's unfortunate that many skip on this album because of its sound, because they might just miss out on one of the best Brand New songs ever written, Bought a Bride.

Brand New guitarist Vincent Accardi (left) had a bigger writing influence on Daisy, possibly resulting in it's differing sound to earlier The Devil and God. The album lists Jesse Lacey (right) as the lyricist of Bought A Bride.

Bought A Bride is a cryptic song. Like other songs on Daisy, it isn't obvious or articulate. It uses exaggerated phrases to express feelings of loneliness and frustration.

In the verse lining up to the chorus the song describes a woman tired of busy life (the hive), wanting a more simple life with a family. She makes it happen through a simple relationship, which pans out more like a business contract than a love story:

She was feeling lonely Tired of the hive Rented out a family And he bought a bride Bought a bride

In Bought A Bride, the mail-order-bride is a figurative way of discussing the issue of loneliness and the transactional nature of relationships. The song describes easy ways out of facing your true feelings. The lady in the song feels lonely, so she gets into a relationship. Is she using him? Coming to the second chorus, we hear his side of the story - finding his life rather meaningless, envying soldiers who used their lives to fight for their country and died for a cause. He finds meaning in their relationship, finally filling the noble roles of a husband and a father.

Should've been a soldier I could've fought and died There's no revolution So I bought a bride Bought a bride

But her side of the story becomes grim. In the bridge, the song describes the wedding as playing Taps - a call often heard in military funerals - while the bride walks down the isle, insinuating that she is walking to her demise. To further nail down the point, he compares this act to tying her up and leaving her on train tracks to wait for her death. In true Daisy style, the bridge leaves something for the imagination, but succeeds to describe the sinister feeling of knowing a relationship is not going to end well.

Coming down the aisle while the horns play "Taps" They tied her up and laid her on the train tracks

Hidden in the end of the song is the most straightforward lyric about not picking the same life again and preferring physical labour.

If somehow I was new and everything was unsaid I'd go and buy a hammer, never sing again

But that's not all - Bought A Bride has a third verse in the live version. Why it was scrapped from the album version is unfathomable, because it ties in the whole concept of Daisy so well. The verse describes the feeling of being outcasted by sleeping on a stairway, a classic Brand New topic described in detail on the title track Daisy. The line about sailing his boat out the harbour describes the need for fleeing, which is visited also in Noro. Shooting the boat full of holes describes self destruction, also a theme in At The Bottom (lines about the dam). After a last attempt to reconcile with God (another classic Brand New theme, but on Daisy mentioned in Be Gone and In A Jar) he finds solace in the end of his life.

Sleeping on a stairway, dreamt I had a boat Sailed it out the harbor, shot it full of holes Folded up my prayer book, I couldn't see the lines Drowning in a kelp bed, I bought a bride

Bought A Bride explores the meanings of our lives or the lack thereof. Are we naive to try to find it in our work or family? Bought A Bride tells a story of a man who envies those whose story has made them a hero and who desires to fit the traditional roles of a man. And more superficially, Bought A Bride explains why you should never get married to a practical stranger.

br

-

[kolttonen]

Bang The Doldrums and Never let me down again

Ok, an insane thought but is Bang The Doldrums kind of like a bittersweet version of Depeche Modes Never let me down again but written from the best friends point of view?

I'm taking a ride with my best friend I hope he never lets me down again Promises me I'm as safe as houses As long as I remember who's wearing the trousers

And then

Best friends Ex-friends till the end Better off as lovers And not the other way around Racing through the city Windows down In the back of Yellow-checkered cars

This is a love song in my own way Happily ever after below the waist

They both have very descriptive lyrics.

[kolttonen]

Going through my library of physical music, part 3/? - Folie à Deux by Fall Out Boy

Going through my library of physical music, part 3/?

I take a random CD from my pile, have a listen and write about it.

This time: Folie à Deux by Fall Out Boy

I think I know this album better than myself. There is not a second I wouldn't anticipate, a riff I wouldn't recognize or a line I couldn't explain.

My journey with Folie à Deux  started when I was some 15 years old. I remember being somewhat infatuated by it, but my love towards it grew slowly. Folie wasn't as flashy as Infinity On High, the songs on it were slower pace, more orchestral and less - well - Fall Out Boy. But over listening, my love grew and became the type of love that never really seems to leave. It doesn't consume me or take me down, it is there when I need it and I will forever appreciate it for that. Now that I think about it, my relationship with Folie is older than the majority of my friendships..

In hindsight, Folie was a breaking point for the band. It wasn't well received and it marked the ending of Fall Out Boy as the 00's knew them. Folie laid the groundwork for later Fall Out Boy albums. After this one, Fall Out Boy was no longer afraid of making a record that didn't sound like "them". Folie solidified Patrick's capabilities as a songwriter and really showed the best of Pete's cynical lyricism.

I don't believe I'm the only Fall Out Boy fan to call this album their favorite of the bunch - although the absolute chokehold So Much (For) Stardust had on me last year makes me rethink my rankings. I will get back to this in another 10 years... Over the years, I have made several top 10 or top 5 album lists on my phones and diaries, and Folie always seems to find it's way in there, sometimes as n. 1, sometimes as 3. But it has yet to fall out of the top 3.

To me, Folie tells a story about the complexities of relationships as an adult, the downsides of fame, addiction and mental health. Folie describes the feeling of taking a look around yourself and not really liking anyone in your life, especially yourself. Folie is written from a time of a crazy transition, to people who are going through crazy transitions in their own lives. Ironically, for me, this album has often been the only constant in my life. The more life experience I get, the more I understand the issues it portrays, and the more I wish to never experience the rest of them.

I have always loved Folie à Deux and most likely always will. Still after over 10 years, this is the album I put on when I just want to chill and close my eyes for 50 minutes. If I have to pick out albums to listen to while travelling, Folie à Deux will always be one. I will never turn it down, and never skip a song on it.

For better and for worse, Folie à Deux has made me into the person I am today. Obnoxious and dramatic? Prone to self-destruction and grandiosity? Depends on how you read the album ; -- )

br

-

Fave song from this listen: Headfirst Slide into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet.

[kolttonen]

about Science Fiction

I love this album because it almost feels like a heart to heart with a friend you haven't seen in a really long time. You laugh and cry together and you feel really connected to them, but then they slap you in the face and you remember why you never hang out with them anymore. Because it always ends with you feeling upset, betrayed and like you were a real idiot to come back to them. Because it always goes too far and you end up hating yourself afterwards.

But I always come back, because for those few moments in the beginning I feel loved, even when I know I'm just going to make myself sick. I'm starting to understand that maybe it's the sick that I crave. Like a dog returns to it's vomit.

Anyways, it's always a 10/10 for me. But the whiplash from Could Never Be Heaven to Same Logic/Teeth might just take me out some day.

[kolttonen]

Going through my library of physical music, part 2/? - Sam's Town by The Killers

Going through my library of physical music, part 2/?

I take a random CD from my pile, have a listen and write about it.

This time: Sam's Town by The Killers

Oh, Sam's Town. I had almost forgotten about you. I always seem to slight you in the favor of your older sister. But tonight, it is just me and you.

For how long have a underestimated you? Not seen past your heavy guitars, into your frightened and tender heart, laid out before me in its rawest form?

You are a love letter to the American southwest, the wild mustang on the horizon, the last cowboy south of Reno. When I listen to your stories, I am there. I see the casino lights from the Arizona state border. I have an eager thirst on my tongue, an ache in my heart and a pit in my stomach.

For I have heard your stories before. How you intimidate me with your anxieties and lull me into a false sense of nostalgia.

Thank you for the ride, Sam's Town

I'll see you again

br

-

Fave song from this listen (and many before that let's be fr..): Read My Mind

PS. This album is a great opportunity for hearing Brandon Flowers call a woman a bitch. It's after the middle mark of This River Is Wild.

[kolttonen]

Going through my library of physical music, part 1/? - Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons

Going through my library of physical music, part 1/?

I take a random CD from my pile, have a listen and write about it.

This time: Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons

I think I got this album around 2013. Their sophomore album Babel had come out the previous year and I liked this band. My infatuation unfortunately didn't last very long as I haven't kept up with what the band has been doing since, but I like to think this album maybe laid some groundwork in my teenage brain that would later turn into an adult brain that loves Simon and Garfunkel and dabbles into some old country music every know and then.

Looking back, Sigh No More is not a very folk-y album, is it? It feels more like a rock or a pop album with acoustic instruments, and that's totally ok. There's a lot of catchy songs, emotional songs, dramatic songs even, and it has really good spacing so it's a pleasant listen in its entirety.

The dramatic parts of the album, especially in White Blank Page and I Gave You All, are my favorite. Marcus Mumford had a very unapologetic and straightforward delivery on the lines where it mattered and I appreciate that. Those two songs really make me stop in my tracks. They make the whole vibe of the album a lot darker, they are not those around the bonfire sing along acoustic songs that you would probably think to come from this era of indie.

The songs on this album will definitely find their way to my autumn playlist, and if I remember correctly, some of them might be there already. I can see some Fleet Foxes or Sigur Rós complimenting them quite nicely.

I remember the band really not caring for the gospel music-label that was put on them in the early 2010s. Hearing back, this album is really gospel-y and might be the most spiritual album on my shelf - and I'm pretty sure I also have some actual gospel music here. Looking back that is kind of funny, if they were using so many christian themes and analogies, why not just own it?

br

-

Fave song from this listen: White Blank Page

[kolttonen]

The psychological horror of Brand New's The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me - an album analysis, part 4/4

part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4

Bangs and silence

The Devil And God has many dramatic, noisy times and they are often highlighted with ringing silence and soft vocals. Luca has a musical jumpscare - it is an acoustic song that seems to end softly on a whimpering whisper, just to go full 180 and spit right back at your face with a brutal re-entrance of the band. 

You could drink up the entire ocean We'll still find someone to be everything we know that you'll never be So touch me or don't Just let me know— Where you been? Or we could leave it alone I'm sure there's someone who knows where you've been (Where you've been)

The track goes out with a bang just to be continued by Untitled, where a soft guitar and electronic sounds are accompanied by a muffled vocal clip:

I could never love you I could never love you, could never love you

 The dramatic differences in the sound are a great allegory for the overall emotional tone of the album, which changes from a total numbness to a soul-crushing guilt. No wonder this album is the emo gold-standard.

The Devil And God shows Brand New's musical flexibility in how they invent sounds that paint the landscape of the album without words. Some of my favorite bits include:

The moist, noisy sound of Welcome To Bangkok, which reminds me of the wet and foggy sound on Deftones’ Saturday Night Wrist:

The chilling outro of Archers, where the distorted guitar mimics first an emergency vehicle, then a heartbeat monitor and finally a woman's scream:

The drum fills and overall percussion track of Not The Sun:

The entrance of horns in Limousine:

The guitar and drum fills after Lacey delivers perhaps the most awful line of the whole album:

And you can’t blame your mother,  She’s trying not to see you as her worst mistake

The guitar line in You Won’t Know competing against Lacey's vocal track:

The guitar solo in You Won’t Know. The song might have my favorite guitar parts in any Brand New song.

Conclusion

I love this album, but God does it make me feel like shit! I love The Devil And God like I love Hereditary or Saturn Devouring His Son - not because they make me feel good but because they make me feel something. The Devil And God is like a car crash you can’t look away from, a loved ones slow slip into an unhealthy mindset you are forced to witness. To write an album from the point of feeling lonely or ill with shame and guilt is not easy as these are not easy feelings to express and put into words. Writing and delivering it in such a compelling way that those feelings don’t just come across to the listener but infect them with them was always a feat Lacey mastered. The Devil And God discusses the ugly turmoils of being an adult with inconsolable feelings of loneliness and desolation in a very catching way that stays with you.

The Devil And God might be the best of things, it might be the worst of things. It will make you find emotions you never knew existed and make you wish you never did. This album will become your favorite daydream and worst nightmare. It will seek out the skeletons in your closet and build you prison walls of their bones. If you feel its calling, let it come to you, but for God's sake, do not seek it out!

br

-

Comments: The correct lyrics to The Devil and God are not clear, as the band seemed to change them out during some live performances and hardly ever gave out the official ones. For the sake of this analysis I have picked the lyrics which I have deemed the most fitting and meaningful.

[kolttonen]

The psychological horror of Brand New's The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me - an album analysis, part 3/4

part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4

If they don’t put me away, well, that’ll be a miracle

A big part of the allure of Brand New's music is that it is written almost from the point of a villain. After the allegations about Lacey came up in 2017, internet commenters have come in swarms, expressing that Brand New's discography was filled with hints of grooming and sexually predatory behavior. The Devil And God is no exception, and the first lyric that comes to mind to many is the catchy opening verse of Jesus Christ:

Jesus Christ, that's a pretty face The kind you'd find on someone I could save If they don't put me away Well, it'll be a miracle

There are also the lines in the first verse of You Won’t Know, in which the writer describes himself as the origin of an undesirable chain reaction in a woman's life:

Your daughters weren't careful, I fear that I am a slippery slope Now even if I lay my head down at night After a day I got perfectly right She won't know

Or the ones in Luca, which allure to bad intentions 

When I disappear do you fear for the sister I took? When I disappear it is clear I am up to no good

Archers also has an interesting line in hindsight:

Order your daughters to ignore me Think that will sort me And sweep me under the rug

On The Devil And God the narrator is often addressing the family of the women in question, while the women are referred to as sisters and daughters, never as their own people. This adds a level of shock value to the lyrics - the “taking of the sister” or things that resulted in a “slippery slope” are never explained, but it is almost as if the narrator gets off on the reactions of his actions. 

Brand New wrote about women a lot, Lacey often expressing his tumultuous behavior with women in his songwriting. In his 2017 apology post, Lacey confirmed that he had had an addictive relationship to sex and had been a habitual cheater for most of his life, treating women he had had relations with disrespectfully and often not understanding the power dynamics at play between him and his sexual partners. This complicated issue is often present in Brand New's music, spanning from song lyrics that could almost be read as a tutorial of how to trick people into bed with you, to detailed descriptions of self-hatred for one’s own actions. According to my own impression, the topic is more prevalent on 2003’s Deja Entendu and 2009’s Daisy, but is not completely absent on The Devil And God. 

As a Brand New fan who only started listening to them years after the aggressive cancellation of Lacey, I am inclined to view their music from a point of view that highlights the parts of their lyrics that could be interpreted as a person taking advantage of others. Some say you can’t get through a Brand New album without hearing lyrics about hurting women, but comments like that don’t turn me off their music in the same way it seems to have done for a lot of online commenters. In many ways, it almost has the opposite effect - the hints of moral decay and hearing the train of thought of the obvious villain in someone else's story is a unique component of the band's music which wouldn’t be the same without it. 

The inner monologue on The Devil and God is anything but accepting, and because of that, I find its portrayal of a bad person comforting. The overall feeling I am left with Brand New’s more badly aged music is that the men who hurt women are just that, men. They are not devils or these big things whose actions should consume you, they are just men.

After listening to a whole song about hurting a child on Limousine, is it obnoxious to think that maybe writing about an accident that had nothing to do with Lacey himself, might have been a way to conceal some personal emotions about the alleged sexual misconduct happening at the time? The narrator being an alcoholic man accidentally killing a young girl could be just a more publicly acceptable framework for lyrics which in reality could be about damaging someone's sexual innocence in the desperation of your own sex addiction. Deflecting your feelings onto something else is easy - almost everyone has cried to a song or a movie or has felt too strongly about a contestant on a reality show. We all see and hear ourselves in different media and latch onto the stories which resonate with us the most, and creative people often create stories which reflect feelings they wouldn’t dare to voice as their own.

Writing about how you see yourself being a bad person is a suicide mission in a society where everything is taken at face value and nuance hardly exists, so it only makes sense to write out your emotions in a more complex narration, where the origin of them could be easily deflected. I don’t think Brand New's music is autobiographical in any sense, but I think it’s fair to say that someone feeling at peace with himself wouldn’t write an album like The Devil And God.

Absolution

The religious themes of The Devil And God are apparent and can’t be missed. Faith is a recurring theme on the album and the writer's relationship with God works as a great analysis tool for his feelings. Some of the songs read as prayers and conversations between the narrator and God, where the narrator asks questions in the realm of “Am I a good person? Are my actions rightful? What happens to people like me? Am I living a good life?”

The religious themes on The Devil And God revolve around knowing when you are not a good person, trying to come to terms with that and live your life with that knowledge. Limousine offers an awful story of a man who hurts a little girl and has to live with the guilt surrounding that. Through this morbid story the album works on feelings of guilt and remorse and begs the question “How will I get myself from underneath this guilt that will crush me?” The album studies this relationship between a bad person and God, and tries to figure out the nuances of living after an unfathomable nightmare happens. The album also explores the themes of dying and killing yourself (in Sowing season, You Won’t Know) and questions, who is welcome to heaven and who is not (in Jesus Christ)? Whose repentance is welcome, and is there atonement for all (in Limousine)?

 The christian imagery around dying makes the album almost lighter - death is not the end-all be-all for the writer as it is also seen as coming back to a father figure (in Jesus Christ). Although The Devil And God is sometimes analyzed as a deconstruction of a man's faith in God, I happen to disagree - this album is neither an atheist nor a religion-critical one, and if you wanted to find one of those in Brand New's discography, you would have to squint your eyes and see all the way to 2017’s Science Fiction.

... continues in part 4

[kolttonen]

The psychological horror of Brand New's The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me - an album analysis, part 2/4

part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4

...

The hardest song to listen to on the album is Limousine. In many ways, the almost 8-minute long track is the climax of the album. The track discusses a real story of a car accident, where a drunk driver hit a limousine on its way to a wedding. The crash resulted in the instant death of a seven-year old girl who was supposed to be going to a wedding with her parents. Both the parents of the girl and the drunk driver survived the accident.

We found your man He's drinking up, he's all-American And he'll drive He's volunteered with grace to end your life

In Limousine, the accident is viewed both from the mother's point-of-view and even more interestingly, from the point of view of the drunk driver. The song is a morbid description of the girl's death, but perhaps the most moving part of the song being the second verse. In it, we get the drunk driver's narration of the accidents emotional aftermath. The driver assesses his place in the world after committing an unforgivable act and contemplates how his actions appear to God. The verse introduces the main emotional question of the album: how will I get myself from underneath this guilt that will crush me? 

Hey, beauty supreme Yeah, you were right about me But can I get myself out from underneath This guilt that will crush me? And in the choir I saw our sad Messiah He was bored and tired of my laments Said, "I died for you one time, but never again"

The song is a quilt-ridden study into the mind of a person after a realization that what they have done will alter not just their but other, innocent passersby lives forever. Listening to it after hearing about the original story is an emotional journey. The lyrics themselves are quite morbid and Lacey really plays into the feelings of the different participants of the tragedy in his vocal track, using his tone to mediate emotions. 

The song has dramatic highs and lows, and probably the longest and most memorable outro of the album. Lacey counts down to the age of the girl's death in a verse, where he proclaims his love while simultaneously backing away and telling the recipient to not comment on it because he might not be able to take it. There are multiple ways of interpreting this part, but I have always thought that this aligns with the theme of unrequited love present in the rest of the album. He loves someone, who doesn’t love him back the same way, a scene found in Not The Sun, Degausser and Sowing Season.

Five will love you so much But do me a favor, baby, don't reply 'Cause I can dish it out But I can't take it

The song is one of the most talked about Brand New songs in its fandom and continues to gather a lot of interest in the original accident and footage of it. Brand New couldn’t have known the impact the song would have and how it would create a narrative around the accident out of control of the girls parents. According to some fans comments under Brand New live videos, Lacey would comment on the song 10 years later on the Science Fiction tour, saying he didn’t understand the severity of his words or the awfulness of the song until he had a family of his own.

Friend - lover - family

One painful theme on the album is the definition of relationships, mainly being someone's friend, lover or family, and the murky waters between them. The question of being someone's family is discussed in different parts of the album, first in the opening track Sowing Season, where Lacey screams:

I'm not your friend I'm not your lover I'm not your family

Lacey’s angry and provocative delivery combined with the lyrics later on the song hints at Sowing Season being about a hard relationship that eventually ended. The lyrics remember the time with their lover as vibrant compared to their regular life, and suggests that having to live with the memories of that happy time feels like a punishment:

Do you miss the blend Colors she left in your black and white field? Do you feel condemned just being there?

A similar scheme can be heard on Degausser, where he is singing about someone who does not quite reciprocate his feelings:

You're my favorite bird and when you sing I really do wish you'd wear my ring

The hurt from Sowing Season and hopeful ideation of Degausser turn sour on Not the Sun. The fast-paced and energetic track details the feelings of one-sided love, where the writer is hanging on by a thread on a relationship where the other person has clearly moved on. The song describes the feelings of crushing desperation where you would do anything to be anyone your loved one would need, or alternatively, would rather have your loved one play-pretend to be with you than to lose them.  The despair from the lyrics wouldn't be anything without the vocal performance that really conveys the rawness of the lines:

Just pretend that you want me And be my babe, would you be my babe?

If you breed, just don’t tell me And be my babe, would you be my babe?

The song is striking in its writing - it shows a soft underbelly of being in love and obsessed that doesn’t get shown often - probably because just hearing it, let alone writing it, is such an uncomfortable thing. The obsessive and desperate things we seek out for the non-existent approval from our idealized loved ones can be quite embarrassing and hurtful to admit, write down and say aloud.

Not The Sun also revisits the friend-lover-family-scheme from Sowing Season. This time he questions his lover desperately, asking for an approval to play a bigger part in her life:

Say you're my friend, but why won't you be my family?

Later in the song the writer turns the narrative around, and that's where we get the title of the song:

You've set on me but you are not the sun You are not the sun I'm outside, I'm growing roots again You've set on me but you are not the sun

He turns his focus on the future and starts to reroot himself after this relationship ends. His sun, the love of his life has set on him, but the dawn of a new time will eventually come. She is no longer the thing his life revolves around, she is not the sun.

... continues in part 3

[kolttonen]

The psychological horror of Brand New's The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me - an album analysis, part 1/4

part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4

Introduction

This is an analysis of Brand New’s 2006 album The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Of Me. The album was the band’s highly anticipated third album that quickly became a cult-classic, a title it holds up to today. It is often considered Brand New’s best album. I agree.

Brand New’s reputation as one of the most influential bands of the 00’s was tarnished in 2017 when allegations of sexual misconduct by the bands main songwriter, singer Jesse Lacey, came public. The following public reaction resulted in Laceys cancellation, which was one of the first cancellations of its kind in this music genre. After the scandal, the band stopped touring and removed themselves from the public eye, never to be seen again. 

I was a young adult during MeToo and the allegation-wave that swept all aspects of popular media, this genre of rock included. I remembered the cancellation of Lacey as one of the most dramatic falls from grace of this time period. I didn’t grow up with Brand New and didn’t think I would ever start listening to their music - their reputation had been ruined for me and I had made an unconscious decision to at least not seek out their music, following the public opinion.

My uninterested stand on Brand New’s music would change on a faithful September morning, when Spotify would shuffle music it thought I would like. Boy, was that software right. I still remember the instant attraction I felt towards the track I couldn’t yet recognize. I am often consumed by the music I listen to and I remember thinking to myself, this song is going to become not just my next obsession, but my next problem.  I remember checking my phone to see which band I was listening to, and my stomach dropping when I saw the two masked men and the little girl behind the corner. The album art had always given me the creeps. The song was Not The Sun by Brand New, and I would spend the following week listening to it exclusively, slowly getting lost in the rest of Brand New’s discography.

Masked faces

If you have ever shown the album cover of The Devil And God to someone and asked for their 5 cents, you will know that there is an infinite amount of interpretations of this photo, with one overarching theme: everyone finds it deeply unsettling and creepy. 

It is a photo of a little girl and two adults outside of a white house. The orange leaves on the upper right corner suggest that it is fall time, maybe Halloween. The house looks very old and run down, the paint is peeling and the stairs are just slobs of cement and rock. The two adults, most likely men, are wearing white, scary Halloween masks and long black coats with hoods. The shape of their bodies and overall identity is hard to tell through their attire. The man on the left has a skull-shaped mask and has his hands in his pockets. The man on the right has a more graphic mask with protruding, bleeding teeth. He is turned towards the man on his right and is crossing his arms. He is wearing slippers, as if he is on his own doorstep. The men seem to be looking for something, waiting.

Behind the corner of the house is a little girl, wearing a shiny, gray fur coat and a plaid skirt. Her hair is up on a cute pin on top of her head, she looks like she is going somewhere formal. 

Why are the adults wearing masks? If it’s Halloween, shouldn’t the little girl be the one with a mask behind the door? Whose house is this? Are the men leaving their house or trying to enter the girls house? 

The men might be looking for the girl, this rundown house as their last resort. They seem relaxed, almost like they are no longer expecting resistance. Their identities are concealed and they remain anonymous, they are up to no good. You feel scared for the girl and the presence of scary looking men is unnerving.

The contradiction between the sweet girl and the creepy adults is what makes this photo so eerie. The girl can represent childhood innocence and the adults the monsters that children face close to their homes. The monsters aren’t usually what they seem like - they can conceal their true intentions in childish ways, masking their true self. They might try to take the children's place, in this photo quite literally by swapping the roles of children and adults going door to door in Halloween masks. One creepy detail lies in the slippers - they are usually worn at home, which is also where children suffer the most abuse.

Why did Brand New choose this photo? The cover perfectly encapsulates the vibe of the album - cold and anxiety inducing. The wrestling between good and bad - the innocent girl and the scary men - is the main theme of this album. The loss of childhood innocence after something soul-crushing happens. The feeling of doom when you know something bad is going to happen and you can’t do anything. Are you the girl or the men at the door?

Ending and beginning

Death and suicide are a recurring subject on The Devil And God. During the time of writing the record, Brand New lost friends and family members - forever encapsulating this sad period of time in the record's emotional landscape. Death is viewed in many ways: nonchalantly as an inevitable part of being human, anxiously as a terrifying unknown and as a preferable alternative to existing (no wonder this album is an emo cult-classic). 

On the opening track Sowing Season, life and ones work is compared to sowing seeds and growing a crop. In the beginning of the track Lacey sings a line about losing his friends to dangerous, pointless drunk driving - perfectly growing fields destroyed for no reason. 

Was losing all my friends Losing them to drinking and  to driving Was losing all my friends, but I got em back

Sowing Season views life as a growing period, during which you should put your seeds to the ground and try to grow something good from it, giving your life  a meaning in the end.  The song goes even further to say that creating something just for the sake of yourself is meaningful, even if other people didn’t value it:

Take all that you have, And turn it into something you would miss if Somebody threw that brick, shattered all your plans.

In the end of the song, death can be greeted nonchalantly, for your life has become the seed in the cold ground:

Time to get the seeds into the cold ground. It takes a while to grow anything, Before it's coming to the end, yeah. Before you put my body in the cold ground, Take some time to warm it with your hand, Before it's coming to an end, yeah.

The opposite viewpoint is heard on Brand News biggest song, Jesus Christ. The song writes out an anxious one-sided conversation with God and discusses the emptiness of life without a partner and a fear of dying:

Do you believe you're missing out? That everything good is happening somewhere else But with nobody in your bed The night's hard to get through And I will die all alone And when I arrive I won't know anyone

Musically, the song is almost like an even more depressing Death Cab for Cutie-song, with a mellow guitar and slow build-up to the bridge, where the writer voices his anxiety about dying in a sudden manner and negotiating his chances with God:

I know you're coming in the night like a thief But I've had some time alone to hone my lying technique I know you think that I'm someone you can trust But I'm scared I'll get scared and I swear I'll try to nail you back up So do you think that we could work out a sign? So I'll know it's you and that it's over so I won't even try

Jesus Christ is often considered one of the best Brand New songs in its lyricism. It stands out from the rest of The Devil And God in how vulnerable and low-energy it is. There are arguably many much in-your-face better rock songs in the Brand New catalog, even on this album. Jesus Christ is much more the silent killer - you don’t expect it to cause a reaction due to its soft sound, but Lacey's nonchalant and mellow delivery of the most soul-crushing lines will hit you like a ton of bricks when you least expect it.

Jesus Christ is often considered Brand News biggest song. The popularity of Jesus Christ might not lie in the song itself - even though it is a great song - but how it found its place in the musical landscape of its conception. During 2006, when the album came out, the musical environment was friendly to almost-acoustic, emo-indie sounds. The harder vocals and sounds heard on the rest of the album were never radio-friendly, which made a big difference in a time when music was still evaluated based on how well it could be played for the masses. It also helps that Jesus Christ has such an odd name - you hear it once and you remember it.

This guilt that will crush me

Making a mistake and living with it is one of the biggest emotional themes on The Devil And God. The narrative voice of the album focuses on past mistakes, feeling guilt and looking for atonement. In Millstone, the writer compares his life before and after and how now his actions weigh on his neck like a millstone of guilt and shame. A millstone is a biblical punishment famously for people who lead followers of faith to sin, with followers of faith often being referred to as children. In Millstone, this setting is explored through the eyes of the guilty person:

My own stone around my neck, Be my breath, there's nothing I wouldn't give

Lacey writes down a depressing overview of a secluded life. These lines might be the hardest ones on the song to not sing along with:

I used to pray like God was listening I used to make my parents proud I was the glue that kept my friends together Now they don't talk and we don't go out

Later on the song we get the passerby-view of him running from his mistake with fatal consequences: 

Never hit the brakes There's no time to save him He's run out in the street Anybody know his name? I think I recognize him Sure it's him? Running from that mistake

Degausser may be one of the best rock songs the band ever wrote. The song starts quietly and slowly blows up to an emotional, vocally straining chorus. The guitar track on this song is phenomenal, perfectly filling the pauses of the vocal track and making the chorus feel like a screaming match between the two.

You burn bright but you're running I fell asleep in the alkaline I can't shake this little feeling I'll never get anything right

Finally the second chorus resolves into a satisfying harmony of vocals:

I'm on my own I'll never say anything right

Degausser continues the theme of mistakes and the past: a device that wipes out electronic memory. It can have both literal and symbolic significance: literally deleting memory and symbolically going through something traumatic and feeling empty afterwards, with no memory or way of connecting to who you were before.

... continues in part 2

[chouxnoir]

the most humbling experience is when you talk to someone who has the same interests as you but they’re a surface level fan and you’re mentally deranged