The '59 Sound

The Gaslight AnthemThe ‘59 SoundWorking a Sunday morning in a record store isn’t exactly a blow-out. For this reason, when in this situation, I usually play loud-ish, raucous-ish music. On a recent Sunday morning I was playing The ‘59 Sound, a recently released rocker from Jersey sons The Gaslight Anthem. My first customer of the day came charging in, grabbed what he needed - the new Bruce Springsteen record - and lay me’d his money down. “Have you heard this yet?” I asked. He looked at me. A scrunched brow that could only be the product of puzzlement. “Yeah,” he said, then paused. “I’m hearing it right now” he said with a stink-eating grin. I laughed inside, sliding a copy of The ‘59 Sound across the counter, feeling as if I were in a television commercial. Dude walked out with two CDs and I, for the first time in a good while, felt as if I’d done my record store job the way it was meant to be done. Let’s recap: loud; Bruce; scrunched brow. This, essentially, is all you need to know about The ‘59 Sound.

Well, maybe not. Maybe you, the longtime Springsteen fan, needs to know that The Gaslight Anthem make what we in the record store world like to call “young man music” (some still insist on using misnomers like “hardcore“ or “emo”). The Old 97’s burst out with this sort of music almost 20 years ago, followed by The Drive-By Truckers and, more recently, The Hold Steady. These bands - Gaslights included - release records that equally embrace the old and the new, made perfect from a young listener who is in between their high school record collection and their real collection. The Gaslights in particular make post-mall-punk rock that sounds like a mash-up of The Hold Steady and Springsteen, if not also (gulp) The Killers. (Folk rock for someone whose never listened to proper folk music?)

The writing here, without doubt, is Springsteen-flavored, though a little less dangerous and more straightforward (the poppier rock tunes from The River come to mind). The rocking is, as you’d expect, very “steady,” coming off almost like a version of The Whigs, sans all aspirations for underground credibility. It’s tight, straightforward and efficient. Many wont want to admit it, but they really do sort of sound like The Killers at times, but maybe only due to the vocals and the modern roots production sheen.

Whether you love the new Bruce record and are thirsty for more of that Jersey bite or maybe a bit let down by the Boss and in need of more grit, be sure to look into The ‘59 Sound if you count yourself a fan of the more classic side of pop rock. This album, like ones released by The Strokes and The White Stripes almost a decade ago, should pull a younger generation towards the catalogs of the artists who influenced them. For that, The ‘59 Sound is a stellar breakthrough that young men and old men everywhere should welcome and enjoy together, fists clinched in joy.   7/10

Written by G. William Locke