Old adages and young women agree that things grow better with age, but a legion of late-90s rock bands stand as evidence to the contrary. Supergroups like Jets to Brazil and The Promise Ring rose to prominence as some of the last worthwhile pop bands of the decade, only to become the first great disappointments of the new millennium. One heard whispers of a confused direction, and perhaps even (in TPR's case) a confused sexual orientation. Either way, The Promise Ring went out with a sigh, and the odds of another good Jets to Brazil album are about as good as that dodo on the cover of Four-Cornered Night coming to life in your living room and shitting all over Electric Pink.
Enter Brand New, whose first album was the effective sum of Saves the Day and Dashboard Confessional. You guessed it: LIES. LIES stands for L.ong I.sland E.mo with S.creams-- think Taking Back Sunday, Thursday, Wednesday, Friday, and any other group of emo-dandies that prance delicately through candylands of Orange Rhyming Dictionaries, New Nathan Detroits and Bells, Bells, Bells. But S.O.S! Very Emergency! Brand New's new album for Razor and Tie, Deja Entendu, is produced by Stephen Haigler, engineer of the Pixies' Trompe le Monde. This and the album's postmodern cover art hint at something more substantial than 2001's Your Favorite Weapon.
While it was surely a treat for ninth and tenth-graders chomping at the bit for "Jude Law and a Semester Abroad", Brand New's debut did little for anyone with an interest in instrumentation or variety; it also had a bad case of self-consciousness, with singer Jesse Lacey spending more time thinking up crazy song titles than anyone in the band (himself included) spent on actual songcraft. But Deja Entendu, while a football field short of groundbreaking, has an air of substance and maturity that, at its peaks, makes me forget a little of how Jade Tree once jaded me.
Deja Entendu comes complete with its own share of ridiculous track names-- a few of which are funny if you can fit your tongue next to that lollipop in your cheek. The opener, "Tautou", isn't the album's strongest, but it's significant in that it introduces the band's new sound with just over a minute of minimalist guitar arpeggio and sombre vocals. Things pick up quickly with "Sic Transit Gloria...", as Lacey's layered whispering over the bass-driven verse breaks violently into an overdriven chorus. In come harmonic shrieks and screams which fall in bassy stair-steps back to the verse. This song rocks but it makes me wonder: Why would a band like this tour with Dashboard Confessional? To score chicks?
"Okay, I Believe You But My Tommygun Don't" gives Brand New's formula away, but as the song progresses there are flashes of wit and maturity, even humor. Lacey scoffs at the narcissistic pretentiousness of the emo scene with lines like, "These are the words you wish you wrote down/ This is the way you wish your voice sounds/ Handsome and smart/ My tongue's the only muscle on my body that works harder than my heart." As long as it stubbornly refuses to roll over and die, emo should at least develop this sense of humor. It could have come off a backpacker hip-hop record if it weren't pulled off with such searing sarcasm.
"The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows" is trite enough for radio play, which is frustrating as it opens promisingly. Unfortunately, though, LIES overcome the band and the song mutates into an aberrant hybrid of Jimmy Eat World and The Used. This burn is thankfully extinguished in favor of a Smiths-y ballad, "The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot". "Jaws Theme Swimming" is cool and controlled enough to be crafty, but "Me vs. Maradona vs. Elvis" is flat-out indulgent. Fortunately, for the subsequent 3:25 seconds, "Guernica" will make you forgive and forget. It's a brilliant lament about the horrors of cancer that manages both desperation and confidence. Still, at the end of the day, we're left with just an EP's worth of decent songs and a spark of interest where formerly there might've been a laugh of disgust. Stephen Haigler may have aided Brand New in discovering a more mature approach to recording, but as far as breaking new ground, the album's title says it all.
