Top 10 Albums of 2010: American Slang - The Galight Anthem

Best Song: The Diamond Church Street Choir

Track List
1. American Slang
2. Stay Lucky
3. Bring It On
4. The Diamond Church Street Choir
5. The Queen of Lower Chelsea
6. Orphans
7. Boxer
8. Old Haunts
9. The Spirit of Jazz
10. We Did It When We Were Young


Before this album I was never a big fan of The Gaslight Anthem. Their influence from Bruce Springsteen is pretty obvious but on The ’59 Sound they end up sounding like the middle point between The Hold Steady and The Killers, two other Springsteen disciples. There is nothing wrong with this sound (“Here’s Looking at You, Kid” was a great song) its just that I would rather listen to the bands that make up their sound.

American Slang works to forge a new identity for the band. The decide to leave the harder punkish sound to The Hold Steady and the spacey echoing sound to The Killers and instead pick the middle speed semi loud rock that Springsteen really excelled at. Turns out The Gaslight Anthem excels at them too. The title track sets the quality of all that follow a great anthem that I could here working in an arena better then any other venue. It just feels so big. The best song here is “The Diamond Church Street Choir”. It feels extremely old school with a pure Rock ‘n Roll pattern and sure enough a Choir in the middle of the song hidden for those who want to notice.

There is really only one downside to this album. Just like most albums by their idol; diversity is not the spice of life. It is hard to talk about each song because they all meld together. But as a cohesive whole or taken individually each track is worth something. Try playing it while driving to get the best effect from the songs.

Now we talked about a sound track and a very traditional rock album. But next we will start to get into more experimental and unusual sounds when we continue our list in 2011, Happy New Years everyone!