Brand New - The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me
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CD Details
Artist: Brand NewBrand: Baker Drivetrain
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2006-11-21
Model: 0602517132542
Music Label: Interscope Records
Soundtracks:
- Sowing Season
- Millstone
- Jesus
- Degausser
- Limousine (MS Rebridge)
- You Won't Know
- Welcome To Bangkok
- Not The Sun
- Luca
- Untitled
- The Archers Bows Have Broken
- Handcuffs
Music reviews of The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me
Music Review: Love is God on a good day
Rating: 5 Stars
Personally, this album needs no review; it is truly one of the best albums i've ever heard. With that said, i'd rather spend my time explaining my own philosophy on the album itself.
"The Devil and God Are Raging Inside of Me"
Before I even say anything, i would like you to take a second glance at the title, "The Devil and God Are Raging Inside of Me" what does that mean to you? I'm not a terribly religious person but to me it really dives into a inner turbulence. One that has virtue and sin, good and bad, happiness and depression all tearing at one person, to create a really divide and inner struggle in that person, i feel that it alone sums up this record well.
So, this is an album by the band Brand New (their third released in 2006), originally known for their pop/punk roots of their first album "Your Favorite Weapon" this band quickly evolved on their second record "Deja Entendu" which was such a massive and amazing record. between reflective lyrics and music that had many upgrades in arrangement, this is still a record that i would consider borderline "perfect" I have been listening to this record since it came out when I was 14 going on 15. This particular record came out the Summer I graduated from middle school and would be moving onto the High School portion of my educational career. This was a point in my life, where I needed a record like this and I am glad that I had it to guide me through a difficult part of life.
Anyway, that takes us now to November 21st 2006, five days after my 18th birthday "The Devil and God Are Raging Inside of Me" was released. This was also one week before I would end a relationship, that I had put a lot of myself into emotionally. (ironically enough, the same thing happened before their 2009 record "Daisy" was released, noticing a pattern?) Ending it was at the time really hard to deal with. So again this was an album that came out in a time of change, yet the differences between this and Deja Entendu are a mile wide. The songs are slower and don't rely as much on a faster upbeat pace as previous efforts. Even faster songs such as "Not the Sun" and "The Archers bows have broken" lack any real upbeat feel to them, they're darker and drag on a little bit more, without coming across as repetitive or uninteresting. Anyway, i'm getting completely off point as to why I started writing this so..
The true beauty in this album is the emotions it represents and the topics in which it tries to convey. The title alone gives the best representation of it. However, my translation of this is that these songs represent situations in either the devil or god are "raging" inside of him. However, this has zero to do with religion, God/Devil are merely representations of good/bad and sin/virtue, here I feel and the term "raging" seems to be used in a moral struggle within himself. The first shining example of this is the second track "Millstone" which starts out as..
I used to be such a burning example,
I used to be so original.
I used to care, I was being cared for.
Made sure I showed it to those that I love.
I used to sleep without a single stir,
'Cause I was about my father's work."
This seems to show the after effect of his devil raging inside of him, his sin and his inner evils taking over, which in turn effects how his daily life is. His father's work could be symbolic for any type of work that has to do with pride or hard work, something that could be de-railed by this inner battle. Then you have the next track "Jesus" which is lyrically one of the best songs written in mainstream rock music. This seemingly represents a very lost part of the tale. A deteriorating conscious suffers from the worries of actions and such self infliction. One of the most famous lines in this song is...
"Well, Jesus Christ, I'm not scared to die,
I'm a little bit scared of what comes after
Do I get the gold chariot?
Do I float through the ceiling?
Do I divide and fall apart?
'cause my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark"
Everybody, regardless of belief comes to this point in life, where fear takes over and the answers to questions asked are all you want. The last line is possibly the most important. "Cause my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark" all the over indulgent and devil representations of his personality fight through the less and weaker gods/virtues of his life and this is what brings on all of these questions. Which can bring in even more amounts of doubt and fear as death approaches, as he feels that his cons outweigh his pros as a person.
Now, i'd like to take this time to tie some things together that hopefully puts this loose concept into something that may sound coherent and understandable. The 4th track "Degausser" has some cryptic and pessimistic lines that show somebody dealing with a heavy inner turbulence and pain, those are;
"Goodbye to sleep,
I think this staying up is exactly what I need
Well take apart your head
Take apart the counting, and the flock it has bred
Goodbye to love,"
look at the 2nd to last line, I take this as a religious metaphor, as a "flock" is used as a group of sheep which is a group of Gods followers and the description of this line is to "tear" them apart. The line that follows "Goodbye to love." also proves a tie in to a metaphor for religion and love, or loss there of for both cases.
Moving ahead though, another vital moment in the concept of this record is actually my favorite and if anything, is the most self loathing part of the record, it's also my favorite song. This being "You Won't Know" the song starts with a croon of...
"Hey hey hey! Mr. Hangman,
Go get your rope
Your daughters weren't careful,
I fear that I am a slippery slope
Now even if I lay my head down at night
After a day I got perfectly right
She won't know..."
This to me is an example of the fact that this inner war is truly fought as I against I. Two attributes to one whole battling a current that is it's own wave of emotions. So, even if he changed even if this war was no longer being fought with his own worst enemy (himself) she won't know because not even a beautiful night, where sleep is easy to find, on a day that went perfectly right, she wouldn't know. Maybe this "She" is really a person, a single entity in this world that has been set upon a throne to represent reaching a goal of positivity, in a self loathing war that seems to be lost. A little later on in the song we come to a lien that I would like to connect to the above mentioned lyrics for "Degausser"
"Love is God on a good day"
The first time I heard that line I was stunned, for the value it has regarding love more so than religion but it basically summed it up perfectly for me, that love is up there with God at its best (this could also be tied into a reference to the devil on it's worst day but that's for another day." So, if the writer is saying "goodbye to love" and love is God, as he rips apart the heard, what does that tell you? have we gotten to a part in the record, where at this point it is an attempt to rise above his virtues and his sins to find some sort of "supreme" happiness within? Is it not even slightly ironic that later on in this same song, the first signs of optimism comes into play? The lyrics in this song take a determined and hands on approach that really haven't been seen previously.
"So believe in me, believe them,
You think I'll let you down
Well I won't
They can fire everything they've got
What do you think? I'm sunk?
I will float on (...and on)
I have burned the bush that covered my light
Even though I'm scared it won't burn that bright"
Or, you could take this part in a darker and much more cynical view. Seemingly doing everything in his power to fight against his own darkness, he's burning up the darkness here that covered such light, to use almost as a flare to let this woman see him and find him. Which I translate as allowing his positive and good nature to shine through enough in his darkness for her to find him. The song ends rather with a whisper than a scream with the possible prophecy that it is far too late in a war with too many casualties to stay on a light path. This is possibly the lowest and most depressing portion of the record, which is ironic because the song is the best on here. (again this has nothing to really do with religion but just use it as obvious metaphors for good and bad)
So they say,
"They say in heaven
There's no husbands and wives
On the day that I show up
They'll be completely out
Of their forgiveness supplies
And I cant use the telephone
To tell you that I'm dead and gone
So you won't know"
Or maybe, the true definition of love, exceeds trivial and humanized labels such as "husband and wife" and he arrives one day too late, with one sin too many and too disgusted a glance, to achieve this notion.
Even though it's a short and on the surface unimportant track (I mean it is called "Untitled") with only one line repeated a good 12 times or so, over what seems to be a telephone, that line is, "I can never love you, I can never reach you" with this being the third to last song on the record and such a bleak outlook, this could give a good understanding of how this story will end. Why can't he reach? Is it possible that his actions have separated from the things he loves so much and alienated all around him to the point where he could never reach them? An interesting and important interlude in this album.
"Who do you carry the torch for, my young man?
Do you believe in anything?
Do you carry it around just to burn things down?"
These questions start one of the final two songs, "The Archers Bows Are Broken" so what does this represent and maybe more importantly, who is asking these questions? is it an outside party trying to understand the obviously complex mind frame of this person? Is he using his positive beliefs for the sake of negativity and just to burn things around him? Being that this is a pretty broad deduction I guess that maybe one of the harder questions of this record.
Order your daughters to ignore me, think that will sort me
and sweep me under the rug
And a beating with a book everyone
the book tells you to love
There is an ember in the heart of the kiln
And its burning hot with love
Going back to "You Won't Know" and a lot of other examples that i've looked at, a lot of the ideas involve him being shunned, ignored, wether it's being "swept under the rug" or being completely "out of their forgiveness supply" it seems that the inner struggle has resulted in the hurt of many a those around him and with the above mentioned, the religion as a symbol and metaphor for love. They're beating him with not just a book but "the book" and it tells you to love AND being that "love is God on a good day" what does this all mean? Is the self destructive behavior so attention hungry that even know, with all those that stood around long enough to keep him warm with love not enough?
The final song "handcuffs" seem to bring this album full circle, this is a really unsettling, bleak, depressing and uncertain ending to this album and I really felt disturbed by it. It seems almost like a farewell cry. A white flag on the battered field that is his life." I would arrest you if I had the time" which basically seems as a flawed attempt at giving up on the ones he loves. The portion that discusses driving his car off of a river seems to be a battered example that he's trying to destroy himself as long as it doesn't effect the ones around him. The conclusion that arises in the last five lines, is that it's hard to allow your positivity to fly freely and all that is well within you to succeed when you're still lying about yourself, your actions and decisions. When the lines of everything begin to blur until the vision of happiness is seemingly gone.
Description of The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me
This is the vinyl counterpart to the 2006 hit release by Brand New entitled "The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me". The CD has sold over 250,000 to date. With the new album "Daisy" out and touring on the horizon, this double LP release is sure to be a hit.Brand New have specialized in pain ever since the pop-punk emo-rage of their 2001 debut release Your Favorite Weapon. But they've outdone themselves on The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me. If the songs on Weapon were paper cuts, the ones here are gaping chainsaw wounds, full of seismic, howling agony. The moody rumbles of 2003's Deja Entendu were pointing here, but this is something else, with Mogwai-level dynamic range and tracks that careen from introspection to fury and back again. Lyrically, lead singer Jesse Lacey's words remain excruciating and harrowing things, but that's nothing new. It's the music propping them up which gives this effort such depth and punch. "Degausser" starts so innocently, then uses a bridge augmented with a bitter children's chorus straight out of The Wall as a lead in to Lacey's bitter refrain of "I'll never say anything right." Then there's the nearly 8-minute "Limousine (MS Rebridge)," epic, and epically sad, constantly threatening to descend into pure cacophony (and eventually succeeding). Repeated listens will tune your ear to the band's still-intact pop sense (especially on "Not the Sun" and "The Archers Bows Have Broken"), which keeps the record lively and unpredictable, and away from becoming a depressing, head-in-the-oven mope. Brand New went through three years of intense recording sessions to make it happen, but it was worth the effort. --Matthew Cooke
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