The Gaslight Anthem – American Slang (2010)

The first time I heard about The Gaslight Anthem was about 8 years ago. A friend of mine introduced me to the great album The '59 Sound. Pretty soon after that The Gaslight Anthem released their following album, this one. American Slang has a bit more fine tuned sounds than its predecessor. Still, the songs are just as great and the attitude hasn't suffered at all. I still think The '59 Sound is the best album this band has ever made, but this one comes definitely as a close second. This New Jersey band makes amazingly catchy and emotional rock music. I own this album on a vinyl that I bought quite soon after it was released. I remember it being surprisingly cheap considering it was a new vinyl album in Finland. Maybe it was an end sale of one of the record stores. Many of them died around that time, unfortunately.


I've heard the same thing from many of my friends who listen to The Gaslight Anthem, they sound a lot like Bruce Springsteen. The band is from New Jersey like the Boss and their songs definitely have similar style. This band also sounds incredibly American. The band plays incredibly well. The production is very polished and there isn't a single sound that sounds off-place. Sometimes this kind of cleanliness may make music a bit dull and commercial sounding, but The Gaslight Anthem really works despite all of that and possibly just because of that. The lead singer's raspy American vocals are just right for this kind of music.

The band's music videos are usually no-nonsense videos of the band playing live. And I can see why. They are great live and they have just the right kind of music that you want to party to on a live gig. The music video to the title track of the album is a great black and white music video that's as much about New York as it is about the band. The video also shows how great these guys are at moving on stage and pumping up the attitude.

I saw The Gaslight Anthem live a couple of years ago at the Alexandra Palace. It was a great gig. It had been a while before that gig that I had actually been to a rock gig like that where you really get into the music and you want to drink beer and start moving to the music. I did feel, however, that I should've seen the band a bit earlier, because I don't like the new albums as much as I like this and its predecessor.

I have here really praised this album for having great songs on it and that's all true, but this band really is about individual songs rather than albums. Even though all the individual songs sound great by themselves, I feel like I get a bit bored after listening to them for a while because their songs are so similar. It might be because I'm lousy at listening lyrics. I feel like the lyrics are really important in this band's songs, but I have just never really paid that much attention to them.

Listen to the album on Spotify.