Album Review - Brand New: "The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me"
Brand New has followed me through adolescence. It seems as if they timed their musical growth to coincide with my personal growth. This has been proven to be especially evident with their third studio album, The Devil And God Raging Inside Me. After three years of waiting in near silence, the finished album was definitely worth the tortured postponement. Every theme, topic & lyric sung in this album rang true with some sort of internal battle that any 20-something-year-old undergoing the transition from young reckless kid to a “petrified of reality” maturing adult would face. Despite it’s age, it still speaks to me close to 6 years later.
Looking to top its first transformation from head bopping Pop-Punk to the mash-up of different styles in Deja Entendu, Brand New has pushed itself much further into a new direction with this album. No longer do they give us the “bubble gum” version songs of the rock genre, or the angsty ”he said, she said” love songs proven to be super popular with listeners. Instead, lyrically and musically there is a real effort to display their artistic transformation; one that expresses a serious, somber, self-reflective pensiveness.
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