By Gaslight.
'Together Through Life' like the black and white iconic imagery of a modern era Dylan classic record Bob. With a enamoured couple entwined between strewn clothes and rugs for picnics in the back of a station wagon on the open road. The front cover of the Gaslight Anthem frontman Brian Fallon's new album evokes the same feeling in moving monochrome. With a black beanie, Jersey boy, local Bruce Springsteen working class hero in a cigarette, rolled up short sleeve white-tee sat uptop the roof of some classic American muscle with his strong arm wrapped around the front of his 'Local Honey' protectively. All as that gold typography marks the perfect picture photograph of this albums artwork and the same couple of the mesmerizing music video of one of Brian's beautiful ballads, the 8-track 'Honey' closer, 'You Have Stole My Heart'. That without the need of colour looks into the beautiful but bare like skin trees of a changing and symbolic season. As our together through this life, compelling couple, evoke and endear that born to run love that feels like it will never run out of road or gas. As they playfully dance, joke that they won't, smile that a thousand words of devotion smile and smoke cigarettes that look like the winters fog of their breath above them as they look to the skies, when they're not buried in the parachutes of each others arms, face to heart. As Fallon yearns, "I don't know if you know/But I feel you in me/Inside of my years/Inside of my bones" for a love that leaves us thinking, "I could have swore I knew you before" for a girl who looks like the Record Store Day Springsteen 'American Beauty' that sat on the hood of his ride in denim and dreams.
Honey, as a matter of fact every black and white video or visual for this albums artwork truly is a piece of such. From the 'When You're Ready' start and the different families that take the stool of this profoundly personal music video and ode to our own. What seemingly starts this 'Local' album as a love song really is one, but a much deeper to a man's true love of his life, his children. His son. His daughter. I mean 'You Have Stolen My Heart' may even really be about this. As 'When You're Ready' by Grace from his gift from God, Fallon devotes and emotes this legacy lament with, "I can't tell you who to love/I don't know who that might be/I hope they cheer you up like crazy/Sweep you right up off your feet/Though I don't want you to grow up/'Cause I don't want you to leave/When you're ready to choose someone/Make sure they love you/Make sure they love you half as much as me", beautifully. All whilst offering the wisest words of fatherly advice, "In this life there will be trouble/But you shall overcome/They'll hurt you in your heartstrings/They'll leave you in the dust/But you do just like I told you/Stand strong and hold your own/A soft answer, quiet's wrath/A gentle whisper breaks a bone". Fatherhood may be a reason Brian wanted to kick the habit on the other single and the deepest cut of his monochrome movie like music videos, as he talks about taking '21 Days' to get over the lovers hold of nicotine. Stubbing it all out with the sobering support of circular chair cathartis for the amazing actress in this vivid video as Fallon hits the road, rolls down his window and throws away his last Lucky Strike. "I miss you most in the morning/we used to talk over coffee," he says romanticisng this drugs itch like an old friend or lover he's probably not going to see again, no matter how many times he picks up the phone. Even if this addictive, intimate album leaves you craving for more.
Have mercy. "Come pick me up from the night/From the hands of the dark/From the things I didn't know/That would simply break your heart". As evocative as those opening lines to the bonus track of The Gaslight Anthem's last album, 'Get Hurt', this one is really something. Wonder all you want because this eight set is the perfect infinite number like Kobe, forever 24. For Fallon's third album in four years after Gaslight, we can't even anthemic keep up with. Following his debut hit 'Painkillers' and the 'Etta James' soulful beauty of 'Sleepwalkers' two years back. 'Have Mercy' like our ballad anthem favourite bit of Gaslighting on the all pretty 'Horses' that runs wild and free like Cormac Mccarthy, or "go on find another love better than me". Galloping in feather touched drums and symbolic symbols as "angels speak your name into existence", finding "love in our forgiveness". Wild Rolling Stones couldn't drag you a way from this hooks pull once it gets in. The pebble beach pictueresque shores of 'I Don't Mind (If I'm With You') banjos make up for the "winds getting colder and the night getting cruel". As it's clear this mans 'Lonely For You Only' on his most honest and heartfelt yet as he invites to admit, "Well, don't lie to me, don't lie to yourself/We were much too sentimental, baby, to make it in the modern world/And I spent my nights alone, and I rode the wheels off/I simply ain't the first thief, honey, holed up on a cross". There's no 'Hard Feelings' for us when it comes to this all too short, but utterly sweet album with substance, minus the saccharine like, "a slow song playing from a baby blue Mercedes" from this young boss. But it's on 'Vincent' when Brian gets his most firsthand, first-person personal on this slow but sincere LP for the record. All about someone from South Texas who says "my name is Jolene, but I hate that song/I was baptized in a river when I was young". Anthems don't have to rock the city stadiums, sometimes they just have to soothe the local bars as smooth as Jack Daniels with Tennessee honey. How sweet it is to love like this. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'When You're Ready', '21 Days', 'You Have Stole My Heart'.
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