Brand New’s ‘Science Fiction’ is the perfect follow up
Some reflections on the most talented band I’ve ever listened to
Anyone who has ever fallen in love with a book, movie, video game, or any other kind of media knows what it feels like to wait breathlessly for a follow up. Many times, such a follow up to a beautiful album, book, or game falls flat beneath the staggering weight of expectations. Other times (and perhaps even more disappointingly) it never surfaces.
This happened recently with Valve and the Half-Life video game series. The first two games in this saga rank among the best-reviewed and best-received of any franchise or console generation, but Valve never made a third game. Fans held up hope for years, however recent leaks suggest that the company closed the doors on this project some time ago.
I bring up this example because Valve and the Half-Life series are much like Brand New in that fans have waited for multiple years to see new material. Brand New released two exceptional albums — 2004’s Deja Entendu and 2006’s The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me — before 2009’s Daisy (which was still good, though not quite at the same level). Since then, the band has waited in almost complete silence. There have been murmurings of new material, a few interviews, and even one or two new songs. But as far as albums go, Science Fiction — released only a few short weeks ago — is the first proper sequel for rabid fanbase.
After several listens and some time for reflection, I can happily say that Science Fiction is the perfect follow up to the band’s earlier projects. It showcases the band’s talent perfectly, even if it isn’t a perfect album from start to finish. This also might be the end to a remarkable musical career for these musicians. Brand New has written some truly breathtaking songs in their career, and this latest effort is a worthy addition to their catalog.
Brand New’s first album, Your Favorite Weapon, gives almost no indication of the band’s talent. It’s a fun pop/rock album, but nothing more. The best song on this album is entitled “Jude Law and a Semester Abroad,” and its angry verbal assault toward a former lover is a far cry from the more introspective lyrical material on later releases. Lines like the one below are good for a laugh…
So here’s a present to let you know I still exist
I hope the next boy that you kiss has
Something terribly contagious on his lips
… but they ultimately float through the radio and other music distribution platforms more quickly than one can count. If this was the only song the band had every written, they would have faded out of memory too quickly to even notice.
Brand New really solidified themselves with 2004’s Deja Entendu. From both lyrics and instrumentation, this album stands as one of the best of all time. Its first full song is titled “Sic Transit Gloria… Glory Fades,” and this number combines energetic guitar riffs with heartbreaking lyrics about sexual assault. The next song, “I Will Play My Game Beneath the Spin Light” is a reflection on the darker aspects of being in a band. Both songs are sad almost to the point of depression, but the lyrics are so beautiful that each listen is still invigorating. After this point, the album continues to shine, and every song offers either fantastic instrumentation or moments of lyrical genius.
Deja Entendu is my favorite release from Brand New, but the critical acclaim around 2006’s The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me easily surpassed it a few years later. Truthfully, it’s hard to argue with that judgement. Nearly every song from this album is phenomenal, but “Jesus Christ” and “Degausser” are the its two best. The former is a theoretical conversation with Jesus, and songwriter Jesse Lacey delivers some of the best lines I’ve ever heard in any song. The delivery is also critical, as the slow, meticulous pace of this song makes everything even more meaningful:
Jesus Christ, I’m not scared to die
But I’m a little bit scared of what comes after
Do I get the gold chariot
Do I float through the ceiling
Or do I divide and pull apart
Cause my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark
This ship went down in sight of land
And at the gates does Thomas ask to see my hands?
I could write something close to a dissertation on the genius of this song. Lacey doesn’t strike me as someone who would profess Christianity, but this song contains a multitude of lines that many Christians would agree with. The lyrics are phenomenal enough on their own, but his vocal delivery cements the song’s greatness. This is a moment where a verbal description of a song falls flat, and my best advice to fully understand this song would be to look it up on Spotify or YouTube.
The Devil and God and Deja Entendu both have incredibly high ratings on the music review site Sputnikmusic. At 4.5 and 4.1, respectively, these are two of the best albums of all time by the site’s main metric. Daisy falls lower on the scale, although its average of 3.9 is still an excellent score. After 2009, Brand New fell completely silent; fans expected a new album, but waited for year after year. Finally, Science Fiction arrived in 2017. And fortunately for these fans, early returns are excellent.
Science Fiction is an excellent follow up to the band’s impressive catalog. It’s framed by interviews from a psychotherapy patient. The album starts out with the spoken words: “This tape recounts a dream which occurred close to the termination of approximately 400 hours of intensive, individual therapy. Now, the patient recounts her dream.” It’s unsettling and creepy, and sets the tone for how most of the album feels after this point. I’m not even sure what this next line (part of the actual song) even means, but it also backs up this overall trend.
Something’s stirring in a deep Atlantic trench
Doesn’t forget the thousand years before it slept
It’s the beast, it’s my heart, it’s open
Dive down into its unit in its head
This album is much more than creepy atmosphere and lines, though. As the title of this post implies, Science Fiction is a completely worthy follow up. As much as any album can meet the expectations of eight years of silence, this album does. The songs are beautiful, the lyrics mesmerizing, and the overall package fantastic. The aggregate score on Sputnikmusic backs this up. As of this writing, the score sits at an excellent 4.2.
There are plenty of standout songs on Science Fiction. Opener “Lit Me Up” ranks as one of the album’s strongest, but “Can’t Get it Out” and “No Control” are also fantastic songs. They don’t have quite the weight of previous efforts like “Jesus Christ,” but that’s frankly impossible given the different times since release. A song like “Jesus Christ” has the collective weight of 11 years to add meaning and power to its lyrics. The fight against depression that permeates the lyrics of “Can’t Get it Out” might raise this song to similar status in a few years. Ultimately though, it’s just too early to tell.
Perhaps the best indication of this album’s excellence is that it contains every element of Brand New’s greatness. If I could distill every part of what makes this band great into a few sentences, I’d mention things like truly haunting lyrics, and instrumentation that enhances these lyrics with perfect atmospheres. This formula applies to a song like “Jesus Christ” in that it accompanies piercing introspection with soft guitar tones. And I need to clarify that the lyrics in Brand New’s work are truly of the highest order. I mention many bands that write excellent lyrics, but Lacey is truly in a league of his own with only a few others. Science Fiction checks all of these boxes from start to finish. “Lit Me Up” is haunting, “Out of Mana” is beautifully aggressive, and the collective effort is worth of its predecessors.
Science Fiction isn’t perfect. For all of its brilliance, some of the songs drag on a little too long, and the spoken word sections lost some of their impact about halfway through the album. Brand New is at their best when they marry hard-cutting guitar lines and softer musical moments with Lacey’s soul-piercing lyrics. Each part of these elements is what makes the duo of “Jesus Christ” and “Degausser” so effective a few albums ago. Here, though, the balance feels little off. There are loud and quiet moments, but there are more of the latter and these don’t quite justify the lack of brilliant guitar lines.
It took me a while to pinpoint this criticism, and I almost feel bad for suggesting that Lacey and Brand New are too quiet on this project. Some of the band’s best songs have come in subdued moments, and I always hate to argue that a band should be less introspective or calm. However, I feel that it’s worth pointing out that some of the songs on this album drag on, and it’s largely because the quiet songs last a little too long. The collective project is still phenomenal and well worth any number of listens, but there is a slight drop off from Deja and The Devil and God.
As the final notes of the album fade out, I’m left with a myriad of reflections on this band and their fantastic career. As Sputnikmusic’s SowingSeason wrote, “The fact that this is very likely the band’s final record weighs heavily on each aspect of Science Fiction’s existence.” The band still draws record crowds, and still enjoys the same love from fans that they always have. I always enjoy live videos where the crowd screams every word, and the video below is an excellent example:
It seems safe to assume that this is, indeed, the end for Brand New. If this assumption is wrong, I will happily listen to any more music that comes down the proverbial pipeline. If that never happens though, the group’s accomplishments are already impressive. The two-album run from Deja to The Devil and God stands unrivaled by any modern band, and Science Fiction is a worthy addition to this heralded discography. Brand New don’t pepper their latest effort with open letters of thanks to fans — a tactic that Anberlin and Yellowcard both employed on their final albums — but if this is the end, it’s still a good one.
Science Fiction isn’t the band’s best album. Truthfully, it never could have been. However, as a follow-up project that was eight(!) years in the making, it succeeds on every reasonable level. It easily vaults to the top of my list for album of the year and easily meets the band’s standards for lyricism and songwriting. Science Fiction is the perfect album for an eight-year gap after some of the best music in recent memory, and it’s a welcome return to the music world from a truly legendary band.
