Today's Pick

New Jerseys finest, The Gaslight Anthem, a.k.a. Bruce Springsteen's favorite new band, return this Summer with a powerful new video for the title track "Handwritten," from quartet's upcoming fourth full-length release and major-label debut, will be released tomorrow. The track is one of the best songs on the album, the guitar overlay in the interlude to the chorus is amazing, it's a perfect example of The Gaslight Anthem sound and such a beautiful use of a simple harmony.
The Jersey four-piece indie rockers have paved the way in their hometown's notorious rock 'n' roll flavor with a refreshing sense of honesty, and replete with manly yearning and stymied loves, there is something inevitable about how much former punks The Gaslight Anthem sound like Bruce Springsteen. "Handwritten," takes them further away from their independent "punk Springsteen" roots into Boss-sized would-be stadium rock with a nod to Celtic-influenced Brit rockers Big Country and the Alarm.
When a songwriter reflects the raw and brittle shade to his honesty, it becomes difficult to resist what he has to say and like so many composers before him, the lead vocals Brian Fallon's heart has its scars and band-aids and the way it bleeds is truly magnetic. "Handwritten" isn't as nostalgic as The Gaslight Anthem's earlier discog and that's because through a more immediate supply of fleshed out rock anthems, the New Jersey collective put a focus on tearing out emotions from memories and putting them to words, chords and rhythms.
Drummer Benny Horowitz came up with the concept of the cyclical tale of a record's life cycle and focuses on how it can mean the world to someone while being just a piece of junk to another. In the Kevin Slack-directed clip, a musician takes a song he came up with from the garage to the stage one evening where a young couple in the audience enthusiastically embraces the track. After getting such a strong reaction, the song is pressed into a record, which the girl later finds in the record store and buys for her boyfriend with a note sharing how much that moment in time meant to them.