Welcome!!! This is a very hard question for me to answer because I am such a huge fan of his music across all of his various projects. You can't go wrong with any of his music really. You could go in reverse order and check out Sleepwalkers from 2018 which was the album before this, but this newest album is probably a little more similar stylistically to The Horrible Crowes album from 2011.
If you already like gaslight he doesn’t have that much more material, so yeah, I’d suggest working backwards
I was the same way, and I thought it was very weird. I never got into any of Brian's stuff until I sat down and listened to Sleepwalkers when it first came out and became obsessed. So then I went back and listened to Painkillers and was obsessed and obviously love Local Honey too. I can't tell you how many times I tried to get into The Gaslight Anthem - dating all the way back to like, 2010 and I just couldn't get into them. Even after I started listening to Brian's solo stuff I still couldn't get into TGA, despite trying more and more. During the first few weeks of quarantine, I spent like a week straight just digging into TGA's albums while I worked from home and can now finally say that I'm pretty into them. But honestly, and I know I'm in the minority, I MUCH prefer Brian's solo stuff to TGA. I still need to get into The Horrible Crowes. Listened to the album a few times (just last week again), but still hasn't clicked fully.
I’ve always listened to Brian solo, but I also have a tendency to put off listening to solo projects of bands I love. I still don’t really listen to Craig Finn’s stuff, and it took years for me to finally give Conor Oberst’s music a shot. So in a weird way, I kinda get it.
For anyone who really likes Brian Fallon's solo output, you really gotta check out his Molly and the Zombies side project. No official release, but they basically recorded an EP live in a studio for some Red Bull Sessions thing around 2013 or 2014. It's awesome. If you can't find it I should be able to hook you up with it but I'd have to do some digging around.
Yeah, "Red Lights", "Smoke" and "Long Drives" are all from the Molly and the Zombies batch of songs, but I would say that both "Smoke" and "Long Drives" are pretty radically different. "Red Lights" basically sounds exactly the same to me. There were also songs called "Lucky" and "Sketchy" from what I remember. I remember hearing this song back around that time, but I still don't have a copy of this one anywhere.
I prefer the Molly version of Long Drives by far. I guess it a way, fans already had that version, so to experiment on the album version to make it more a little more country/Americana makes sense.
There’s a YouTube live performance of it, which makes me wonder what it sounded like recorded. Wish all those songs were released as part of the Red Bull sessions or as a demo. Would have wrapped that brief era.
I also much prefer the MATZ version of "Long Drives" - its not even close for me. But I absolutely love the Painkillers version of "Smoke" though.
I prefer the MATZ version of Long Drives much more. I also dislike the way he sings “I could never get her to believe” in the newer version. Smoke and Red Lights are both solid on Painkillers.
long drives is my favorite solo Brian song I think – need to check out the original version. also not in love with that one particular line lol
The MATZ version of "Long Drives" is just absolutely perfect to me, and it always makes the Painkillers version feel to me like the entire song is going by with your foot slammed on the brakes holding the song back, if that makes any sense. I realize this is more my problem than a result of either version of "Long Drives" being a bad song, because I can almost guarantee I would have absolutely loved the Painkillers version of "Long Drives" had I never heard and fallen in love with the MATZ version.
Just revisited the MATZ version of Long Drives and still prefer it. I guess it’s because I had what 2-3 years with it? Cause the Painkillers version is still very solid. He keeps most of the lyrics in tact with a bit of shuffling so it’s not too drastic, but I still love that version!
They never amounted to anything more than a quick side project, a few shows, and a really cool band name.
I feel like it was Brian messing around, writing some different songs, booking some solo shows when free, having fun and seeing what was viable.
Yep. It’s one of my Painkillers album criticisms (best version of the song stylistically got altered for the record). Although as I said before, it did exist so we really got two versions for fans to chose between. I do wish we had a 7th and Union in that MATZ’s Long Drives style.