The Gaslight Anthem

The ’59 Sound Sessions SIDEONEDUMMY

2008 breakthrough given a 10th-anniversary back-story.

Bursting out of the New Jersey punk milieu with a nostalgia-signified, Springsteen-informed album of remarkable blue-collar heft, The Gaslight Anthem’s rapid ascent to festival favourites was turbo-charged by an appearance by The Boss himself at their 2009 Glastonbury set. In a textbook example of a doubleedged sword, these early associations have hung heavy, the band never quite achieving escape velocity from perception’s powerful gravity.

Released to coincide with the album’s 10th anniversary, and a slew of summer dates, these formative versions shine a piercing light on both the band’s raw, uncut energy and the merits of a full production job. Brian Fallon’s vocals are noticeably more cracked and hoarse, the bass sound distinctly lo-fi and clicky (presumably not using the titular ’59 Fender Bassman amp), yet the tracks crackle with an X-factor excitement. It’s sugared with the previously unreleased tracks Placeholder and Our Father’s Sons, the former the equal to anything on the final cut, the latter less so, and an American-gothic take on Johnny Cash’s God’s Gonna Cut You Down provides a lowerkey counterweight to the anthems elsewhere.

More of a companion piece and hardly essential, it’s nonetheless a keyhole peek into where a great album comes from.