The Gaslight Anthem, The ’59 Sound

With all due respect to Springsteen-loving outfits such as the Hold Steady and Arcade Fire, the Boss already has some local boys who seem to have the apprenticeship locked down tight. The members of New Brunswick, N.J.'s the Gaslight Anthem are young and hungry, earnest to a fault and apparently very eager to impress upon us their warped-cassette copies of Born In The USA: “No surrender, my Bobby Jean,” sings frontman Brian Fallon on the band's second full-length, economically fitting together his Springsteen references like Tetris blocks. So it's no surprise that The '59 Sound is filled with songs about working-class heroes and hard-luck teenagers cruising around in the backseats of cars and washing away sin with cheap whiskey and beer. The shocker is that the Gaslight Anthem has taken these well-worn Jersey-rebel themes and revived them through the sheer power of youth.

Opening with the crackling speaker noise of a needle hitting vinyl, The '59 Sound echoes all around the ragged-rock corners of a record collection. It particularly tends to linger in mid-period Replacements (circa Tim and Pleased To Meet Me) on “Casanova, Baby!” and the title track, with Fallon nailing the raspy anxiety of Paul Westerberg and small-town malcontents everywhere. Guitarist Alex Levine alternately chugs and chimes, never settling too deep into Social Distortion-style punk riffing or Tom Petty pop jangle, resulting in songs that are more durable than derivative. Even those who would scoff at Fallon cribbing song titles from movies (the single-gal lament “Even Cowgirls Get The Blues,” the ex-girlfriend weeper “Here's Looking At You, Kid”) have to admit it's kind of endearing. The Gaslight Anthem is trying too hard in all the right ways.