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Brand New - 'Daisy'

Reviewer: Paul Bowden

With ‘Daisy’, Brand New have finally created the party album of the decade. Yes, that’s right boys and girls, clocking in at thirty-five minutes of purest pop brilliance, ‘Daisy’ is a veritable minefield of luscious choruses and irresistible hooks; the kind of album that the workers on your local building site will whistle and that you can play to your granny without fearing that she’ll suffer a heart attack.

Oh wait, that’s the new Boys like Girls record. Sorry, ‘Daisy’ is actually a miserably aggressive horror show that trawls the darkest depths of the human psyche, exploring a world of desperation, loss and emotional catastrophe. Play this beast at a party and your guests are likely to start bashing each others’ brains in with the furniture.

The album takes the misery and hopelessness of ‘The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me’ and reimagines it through musical cacophony; ‘heavy’ doesn’t even begin to describe the raw, distorted guitars and abrasive, crashing drums that pound at your earlobes throughout.

This is less the sound of the defeated and more the sound of the disgusted: instruments are assaulted rather than played, and Jesse screams like Frank Carter’s demented second cousin twice removed over most of the tracks, obliterating any semblance of melody.

It sounds like a horrific listening experience but actually, it’s quite the opposite. Like a good car crash, you just can’t help but be fascinated by ‘Daisy’; to want to stare, self-destructively, at its twisted, repugnant carcass. Opener ‘Vices’ is so violent, you’re left windswept in its wake, while the extraordinarily visceral ‘Gasoline’, ‘Sink’ and ‘In A Jar’ do their best to hammer every semblance of sanity out of your poor, unsuspecting skull.

Just to compound matters, Brand New also do their best to be contrary: as ‘Vices’ and ‘Gasoline’ explode around you, the monotonic ‘Bed’ and ‘You Stole’ begin, sounding more like the long-lost sisters of ‘Jesus Christ’ and ‘Luca’ than some sort of post-hardcore noise-fest. Consequently, you’re left waiting for them to erupt, for the feedback to kick in, but it never does, which is all the more disquieting.

Rumours indicated that ‘Daisy’ would be an unlistenable record, a self-indulgent piece from a band determined to be contrary. However, while this is certainly a difficult listen, it is also outstandingly compelling: its aggressive musical palate and abrasive production are the perfect soundtrack to its miserable, repugnant themes. Fuck partying guys, let’s smash shit up.

Outstandingly compelling: its aggressive musical palate and abrasive production are the perfect soundtrack to its miserable, repugnant themes