The Gaslight Anthem - Sink Or Swim

I have a weird relation to this band.
Back in my second semester of college, my iPod met a chilly, moist fate in a local stream as I was gallivanting about the rocks and crevices. In retrospect, keeping your mp3 device in your unbuttoned chest pocket whilst performing a careening leap across a body of water is typically not the best method of conducting yourself. With one last note from Crimpshrine's "Can You Feel That", I found myself out 300 USDs, and far worse, unable to escape the blaring bullshit echoing around the interior of the commuter's bus to campus. Fortunately, my parents had forced a cell phone into my hands after many years of refusal, and it happened to be a trendy (at the time) Juke or whatever it's called, replete with mp3 features and a pair of headphones with earbuds unsuitable to the human ear. I got so many fucking headaches from those little malformed lumps of plastic. But anyway, that was around the point I discovered this album.
I uploaded it to the low capacity phone alongside a handful of other albums I had downloaded long ago but never gotten around to listening to, sat down on the gross faux-leather seat, hit play, and instantly fell in love. It was one of those albums much like Nirvana's Bleach and Sebadoh's Bakesale that instantly captured my attention and led me to flog them brutally for several weeks straight. Unfortunately, just like those two albums, this one would meet a similar fate.
I've found that whenever this sort of infatuation occurs, there are two possible outcomes:

1.) a life-long affair with the disc in question, where the listening rate diminishes, but never your affection or admiration, and you find yourself revisiting said album forever more
2.) you love the shit out it for a few weeks/months, then take a long break, revisit it and wonder what the fuck you ever saw in it in the first place

Unfortunately, only a few months after adding The Gaslight Anthem's Sink Or Swim to my top 20 list, I put it on one day and found that my every potential gripe had distilled and floated to the surface in my absence. All I could think of from that point on was "holy fuck are these guys a bunch of cheesedicks". The fact that I overlooked the sheer corniness of this band provided a true shock to the system, and I abandoned them for close to a year. Eventually, though, I gave them another chance with far lower expectations and found myself enjoying them again, in spite of the inherent overstated-ness. Lemme give you a bit of background before I go any further, though: The Gaslight Anthem are four piece from New Jersey who formed in '05 and play what could be described as either a pop punk approximation of Bruce Springsteen or something like "folk rock-punk". Being a fan of a handful of Springsteen albums (mostly Darkness On The Edge Of Town and Nebraska) and The Replacements (the other band these guys draw the most comparisons from), I was genuinely intrigued by this band's marrying of styles, and for a while, I wasn't let down in the slightest. Their sound is certainly likeable enough - basically "orgcore" styled pop punk developed into a more rock-orientation with elements of folk and Midwestern bar band antics. Sound good? It is... sort of.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of good songs on here, especially "1930", "I Coulda Been A Contender", and "I'da Called You Woody, Joe", it's just that once the initial sheen wears off, it's the corniness you have to contend with. Primarily, it's the prosody and lyrics here; Brian Fallon CANNOT POSSIBLY BE WRITING LYRICS LIKE THIS FROM THE HEART. I mean, look at this shit:

"And I spent time 'neath the trestles,
With the punks and the dimestore saints.
I kept faith and a switchblade tucked beneath my coat.
And I ran with dirty angels,
Slept out in the rain.
We were scared and tired and barely seventeen."

"I'm broke and I'm hungry.
I'm hard up and lonely,
I've been dancing on this killing floor for years.
And of the few things that I am certain,
I'm the captain of my burden.
I'm sorry doll, I could never stop the rain."

"Honey we came to dance with the girls with the stars in their eyes.
Do the jump back Jack stop and slide to the right.
Never break their hearts,
Never make them cry, so come on.
Strike up the band with a song that everybody knows.
If I'm not your kind then don't tell a soul.
I'm not the one who hates being alone,
So come on."

I've heard that some of these songs are written from different perspectives, but how would you know that right off the bat? They're all sung in first person. Y'know how when Bruce sings about personal pain and Americana hoo-ha, it sounds somewhat believable and spoken from a wisened, believable, almost cynical standpoint? Well that mold isn't exactly open to anyone's muse. You can't just get some fresh faced 20-something kid with sailor tattoos and a chimney sweep's cap to sing stuff like this without sounding completely ridiculous. If you can somehow move past that, though, there are certainly goods to be had here, though. This album doesn't have a chance of ever landing in my "favorite albums list" again ("We're Getting A Divorce, You Keep The Diner", "Red In The Morning", and "Red At Night" are pretty disposable), but it's still worth a listen if you haven't had one already.

http://www.mediafire.com/?bssm9mx0yxx

My only other complaint is pretty unfair to throw out on this album, but wore these guys out for me nonetheless: after hearing the band's second album, The '59 Sound, it kinda dawned on me that these guys weren't really going to progress any further, and by stripping down their sound, they revealed how few ideas they really had. That album definitely has some songs worth hearing ("Meet Me By The River's Edge", "Miles Davis & The Cool", "Old White Lincoln", and "Great Expectations"), but half the songs almost sound identical, especially by the time each crescendo/bridge hits. Oh, and wait until you hear "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues". It's like being barraged by a meteor shower of hot, sloppy, shit.