I finally had a chance to listen to this tonight, and neither my wife nor I were able to stop smiling and simultaneously tearing up with happy tears. Which is to say that they're definitely back and this is an amazing record.
161 shows (thank you for the assist ConcertArchives) and tonight was hands down the worst crowd I've ever experienced. Pretty incredible when the venue only held 800 people. It's hard to truly enjoy yourself when obnoxious assholes yell shit between songs (a constant refrain of "play another song!") which clearly pissed off Brian throughout the night. Thankfully he eventually went from passive aggressive to outright aggressive towards the dipshits, which made the loudest ones stop yelling, and his banter eventually settled into fun trolling instead of what seemed like outright contempt towards the entitled crowd. However, by the time I heard "BRUUUUCE" towards the end of the show I was ready to lose it because I couldn't even imagine how much that would annoy the band if they heard it. New Jersey doesn't deserve this band and how they constantly cater to us by changing their setlist to make each show special (minus continuing to try and make "Stay Vicious" happen). I say this as someone who has lived in NJ his entire life and has a NJ music themed tattoo inspired by Gaslight. Anyway, rant over. Some positive notes. The opener was solid, Gaslight killed it despite tech issues, the Anchorman themed Halloween getups were a blast, and History Books is the exact comeback album I could have hoped for from them.
Yeah it’s almost like the Platonic ideal of a TGA song. I already really like this and can tell I’m going to love it once it’s not 80 degrees here.
I haven’t loved anything they’ve done since ‘59 Sound but yeah, this is great. It kind of makes me sad, I like that.
This is up there with Handwritten and '59 Sound for me. Amazing record and one I'd strongly suggest you guys listen to with a good pair of headphones.
Agreed on good headphones. Opens the album right up. I finally have an appreciation for spiderbites because early listens it sounded a little strange and I couldn't make out a lot of the lyrics (including "So we struggle, for each other") One I wish would connect with me after seeing so much praise is Michigan 1975. It's nice enough but doesn't reel me in...
I admit I'm not super huge on this band like I was up until Get Hurt but I'm pleasantly surprised by this album. I should revisit the aforementioned record and see if it grows on me with much more time and distance now.
Love the callback to Handwritten in The Weatherman, "to the lovers still in love with the night" This album feels like it's half a Horrible Crowes album, half a Gaslight anthem. But then even the Gaslight songs are about ghosts and cobwebs and spiders and haunts. It's like they engineered it to be an October album