As leader of the New Jersey band The Gaslight Anthem, Brian Fallon knows his way around vein-bulging rock 'n' roll: Like his idol Bruce Springsteen, Fallon conflates the romance of youth — fast cars, restless blood, hormonal love — with the bone-deep understanding that it can be taken away at any time, whether at the hands of a grisly accident or a slow fade into adulthood. In the process, he makes the struggle to hold onto vitality feel hard-fought, even important.
Fallon is about to embark on a career detour as half of a side project called The Horrible Crowes, which mostly replaces The Gaslight Anthem's to-the-rafters intensity with something more portentous and slow-burning. Elsie, the band's debut, comes out Sept. 6, but the record's first single is bound to make its way onto a few storm-themed mixtapes this weekend: "Behold the Hurricane" finds Fallon reassessing an old love while employing an unintentionally topical metaphor.
The most Gaslight-esque anthem on Elsie, "Behold the Hurricane" wields many of Fallon's greatest songwriting weapons, from the air of life-and-death struggle to the Springsteenian chorus. "I age by years at the mention of your name," Fallon sings, in the process acknowledging the awesome and often ruinous power of the past we try to keep behind us.
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