The Hawk

Issue date: 12/8/06 Section: Entertainment

The album has survived a pre-release leak.

For most popular musicians, the studio serves as a creative safe-haven. The artists are allowed to live and work in a virtual bubble while they concoct their next musical achievement. They have the opportunity to try out new songs, break them down, re-arrange them, and even throw them away without any of the pressure or criticism of the outside world. Unfortunately for Brand New, their musical privacy was robbed when, in January of this year, nine demos from their forthcoming third album were leaked to the internet. The demos leaked fast, and the band was obviously upset about their unfinished work being in the hands of thousands.

The demos were solid, showing the band's musical direction continuing to expand while lead singer/guitarist Jesse Lacey's lyrics became even sharper and more biting than on their radically progressive sophomore album, Deja Entendu. In interviews in late 2005, following Brand New's signing with major label, Interscope, Lacey expressed his confidence in their current work and how he could see them becoming a leading act in popular rock music. He referenced larger than life bands like U2 and Bruce Springsteen, saying how the band was working on creating songs that would have universal appeal, songs that could connect to a wider audience and, ultimately, thrust the band into the mainstream. When released, the demos sounded like Brand New was quickly moving in that direction, boasting huge choruses and the band's most accessible music to date. The songs could have been a fantastic album in themselves, and anticipation grew larger as everyone was left wondering what else the band was going to produce.

The reason I place so much emphasis on the leaked demos, is because I believe that had those songs not been leaked months prior, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me would have been a much different record. Only two of the leaked tracks appear on The Devil and God, the band's hardest and darkest album to date. Opening song "Sowing Season" sets the mood of the record, beginning with Lacey hauntingly singing, "Losing all my friends, losing them to drinking and to driving," before tearing into a raging chorus. The song appeared as an acoustic track on the demos, getting a full band makeover here, and standing alone as the album's first single. "Sowing Season", along with other demo-turned-album song "Luca", were the darkest and least accessible of the nine, and the fact that it was chosen as the first single speaks volumes about the rest of the album.

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