Review: Brand New – Daisy

October 4th, 2009 by Oswald Hobbes / Comment on this post

By the time their last album dropped in 2006, most of Brand New’s early-aught emo peers had already flamed out on major labels and retreated to the warm embrace and low standards of Vagrant Records. The band makes it clear with their new record, Daisy, that they’re just now getting started. Following the heavy, multi-layered gloom of The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, Brand New have rejiggered their formula yet again.

Album opener “Vices” begins with a snippet of gentle piano-driven gospel music before exploding into riffs sharper and more vicious than they’ve ever showcased. The album gets continually better from there, especially on repeated listens. Daisy is a difficult and complex record that must be absorbed before it can be fully appreciated — and like Brand New‘s past releases, it’s well worth the effort.

Daisy clocks in at an initially underwhelming 40 minutes. That brevity works to the band’s benefit. On an album this full of dynamic shifts and strange experiments, its welcome could have easily worn itself out if they pushed much further.

Instead Daisy is a compact and nuanced thrill ride, with nary a second of bloat. The band cranks up the amps and adrenaline on aggro showpieces one minute (see the riotously charging “Gasoline” for an example of how hard these fellas can hit) and then turn the heat down to simmer for “Bed” and the title track, which both remain relatively quiet while harnessing big power, threatening at any moment to lurch off track and become something else entirely.

Lead guitarist Vincent Accardi’s riffs have a spooky, bent quality — it sounds like he’s been studying early Modest Mouse records. That influence is never as obvious as during the two-minute interlude “Be Gone.” It’s nothing but a gnarled blues riff and some super-distorted vocals, but it’s one of the most distinctive and effective tracks the band has ever recorded.

Daisy is a rare beast in the oft-uninspiring alternative rock genre. It can clobber and caress in equal measures, and at no point does the band consider those qualities mutually exclusive. The experience is as pleasant as stroking a unicorn’s lustrous fur — and as shocking as having that same unicorn impale your heart with its horn. It’s serious business, and fans of sharp and innovative guitar rock should hope lead singer Jesse Lacey’s recent hints that the group might disband prove entirely false. I’m crossing my fingers there’s plenty more where this came from.