#referential critique

Looking back, it is surprising to me how vividly I can recall my first listen-through of Daisy, the highly anticipated fourth full-length release from alternative rock powerhouse Brand New. I was only fourteen at the time when I eagerly rushed home from school to devote forty minutes to listening to my favorite band and what would surely be their next masterpiece. Although there is no way I can recall my specific initial reactions to the work, I can attempt to experience it in its immediacy by disregarding my knowledge of where shifts in the song occur. Through this mode of listening, I feel that “Vices” evokes the same sense of shock I felt when I felt it, tinged with uncertain satisfaction and crescendoing into breathless anticipation.

Regardless of whether one is familiar with Brand New’s work prior to Daisy, “Vices” immediately places the listener in a state of confusion with a record player’s low, scratchy hum and a clearly antiquated recording of a song that is not sung by Brand New’s vocalist, Jesse Lacey. There is a sense of unease accompanied with this recording, whose placement is undoubtedly bizarre in an alternative rock song and almost eerily saccharine; an active listener wonders if the entire first track consists only of this recording, and feels a degree of anxiety over the sheer bizarreness behind the artistic choice.

Looking back, it is surprising to me how vividly I can recall my first listen-through of Daisy, the highly anticipated fourth full-length release from alternative rock powerhouses Brand New. I was only fourteen at the time when I eagerly rushed home from school to devote forty minutes to listening to my favorite band and what would surely be their next masterpiece. Although there is no way I can recall my specific initial reactions to the work, listening to the starting track of the album, “Vices,” evokes the same sense of shock I first felt, tinged with uncertain satisfaction and crescendoing into breathless anticipation.

As someone familiar with Brand New’s previous work, “Vices” immediately placed me in a state of confusion with the opening of a record player’s low, scratchy hum and a clearly antiquated recording of a song that is not sung by Brand New’s vocalist, Jesse Lacey. There is a sense of unease accompanied with this recording, whose placement is undoubtedly bizarre in an alternative rock song; as an active listener, I wondered if the entire first track would only consist of this recording, and considered how the band might have opened with such strangeness to immediately divorce their sound from their more predictable, less genre-bending earlier work. I can even recall feeling a degree of anxiety over the sheer bizarreness behind the artistic choice.