Handwritten
- The Gaslight Anthem
- Band Name: The Gaslight Anthem
- Record Label: Mercury
- Release Date: Jul 24, 2012
- Critic Score
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Jul 9, 2012100As listeners, as fans of music, we've already hit the lottery here.
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Jul 23, 201290The lyrics are a little more personal, the band a little more developed - it seems that this is the start of a new and exciting chapter for The Gaslight Anthem.
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Jul 10, 201290The criticisms are minor--a couple of tracks slide back into familiar Americana, but even then there's no sense of the band coasting.
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Jul 10, 201290Thanks to the expert production of Brendan O'Brien, the record sounds goddamn phenomenal. [Aug 2012, p.83]
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Jul 24, 201283On Handwritten, his lyrics have finally settled into a perfect spot between craft and catharsis. And the music isn't far behind.
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Jul 18, 201283Their album is everything its title suggests: old-school, DIY, and so heartfelt, its emotions might as well be tattooed on its knuckles.
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Aug 13, 201280Handwritten is The Gaslight Anthem's finest and most authoritative album. [28 Jul 2012, p.52]
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Jul 30, 201280It doesn't quite spike with the sharp edges of old, but the passion is in a more intelligent place, and it's a place worth returning to with at least the same frequency as those hospital walls.
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Jul 30, 201280The result is a weighty collection of tunes that toughens up the band's predilection of a softly rendered, Cure-indebted jangle and nudges the harder edges of Green Day's stadium punk.
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Jul 25, 201280As a whole Handwritten has all of the heart-on-rolled-up-sleeve passion that makes the Gaslight Anthem a band that is so easy to love and identify with.
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Jul 24, 201280Handwritten may not break any new ground for the band, but it's easily their strongest release yet.
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Jul 23, 201280Not only is Handwritten The Gaslight Anthem's best album, but it's also one of the best albums of 2012.
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Jul 24, 201278Between the middle-of-the-metronome songs ("Keepsake"), mild bridges ("Handwritten") and ballads ("Mae" and "National Anthem"), the most riff-heavy, driving songs on Handwritten push the album from a good one to a great one.
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Jul 17, 201275With one foot rooted in the past, the band is yet pushing forward, with an album that promises longevity and, maybe, greatness.
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Jul 25, 201270The tunes are a jumble of fidelity betrayed and fidelity pledged, with tough-sounding, country-tinged, blues-infused gutter rock providing a spine.
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Jul 24, 201270Loud and big--stadium big, major-label big--and although it has soft patches, much of it hurtles forward with welcomed urgency. [No.89, p.58]
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Jul 24, 201270The steady driving "Mulholland Drive" and the Roy Orbison-worthy "Here Comes My Man" are among the band's best and could have easily come off their breakthrough 2008 release The '59 Sound.
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Jul 19, 201270Handwritten is Gaslight's biggest-sounding, most straightforward album. The hints of Motown and dub are gone, but superproducer Brendan O'Brien supplies bite and gleam.
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Jul 10, 201270For all the fine furies collected on Handwritten, the most memorable moments are those on which The Gaslight Anthem shift to lower gears. [Aug 2012, p.66]
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Aug 1, 201260Handwritten is pure New Jersey rock, dripping urban romanticism, albeit with extra oomph on the power chords. [Aug 2012, p.105]
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Jul 25, 201260Handwritten houses some of Fallon's strongest compositions to date, and while it ain't punk, neither is The Gaslight Anthem.
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Jul 24, 201260In going from name (or lyric) checking their favorite bands to trying to actually sound like them, the Gaslight Anthem might have blurred the crucial line between inspiration and identity. None of this is to say that Handwritten isn't an often enjoyable, occasionally brilliant album, cause it assuredly is that.
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Jul 20, 201260As long as sincerity still counts for something and melody remains king, we'll let these qualms lie and lap up a record that's chock-a-block with comfort food choruses.
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Jul 19, 201260Their fourth album never steps out of the shadows of their heroes, and may not take them where they want to be.
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Jul 17, 201260An honorable effort in what they do best.
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Jul 26, 201257If in the past [Fallon] managed to transform similar icons [Ginsberg, Van Morrison] into a communal mythology, here it too often sounds like regurgitation, as though the reference were an end in itself.
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Aug 2, 201240After four albums of American girls, dirt roads and fingers in dust with the radio on, it's tough to overlook the clichés.
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Jul 26, 201240As a lyricist, Fallon has moved beyond bald cliché to bland commonplace.
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Jul 24, 201240It seems about 10 years out of date, and releasing it whilst Springsteen is mid-tour only serves to heighten their aura of lightweight superfluousness.
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Jul 23, 201240Gaslight seem so hellbent on heroics, they often end up more Bon Jovi than Boss [Springsteen].
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Jul 19, 201240It buries some strong writing, singing and potential. [Aug 2012, p.96]