That’s right, happy birthday to the Monkees’ Headquarters…
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[6.00]
Anthony Easton: It feels weird to say this, because the Gaslight Anthem is very much devoted to nostalgia–and the central metaphor of the record would reinforce that idea of nostalgia–but they seem to be making some progress here. Not a lot of progress, it’s the same cars and records and girls and butch playing out of the tropes of rock and roll, but there seems to be more ornamentation and more attempts at a kind of pleasurable noise.
[5]
Brad Shoup: Excellent road-trip fodder, where the drone of the highway beefs up the thin guitar tone, and pressing “repeat” defies the point of the mix.
[6]
Alfred Soto: Quite pleasant, with a careening solo. I’m at the age when “I’ll see you on the flipside” should carry all sorts of nostalgic associations, and for the Anthemers nostalgia is their muse, but this is not the first time they’ve trod this ground.
[5]
Iain Mew: In the context, I can’t help but hear “But have you seen my heart?” and think “But have you seen my records?”. No matter, it’s the ceaseless energy and density of great guitar sounds which I am in this for rather than the narrative that they’re in service of.
[7]
Jonathan Bogart: For reasons of my own, I’ve been listening to a lot of Bryan Adams lately; so probably I’m not in the right mood to indulge pretty boys indulging their heartland-rocker fantasies.
[5]
Jonathan Bradley: The past few years have seen the Gaslight Anthem refining their sound into a leaner, driving form of rock ‘n’ roll, and if there’s a drawback to that, it’s that it’s occasionally resulted in less of the swooning romanticism that characterized their earlier material. Songs like “Boxer” or “The Spirit of Jazz,” both from 2010’s American Slang, exhibited more focus than the band had previously show, but they didn’t ache like “The ’59 Sound” did. “45” has Brian Fallon figuring out how to make his band’s material more muscular without sacrificing the heart. The chorus has Fallon once again turning to his well-trod territory of cultural symbols of American masculinity — records, cars — but here they’re used to signal stasis: “turn the record over”; “turn the key and engine over.” The weariness is compelling.
[8]