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Brand New are in a position that many bands would both dread and be envious of.

Since the release of 2001’s Your Favorite Weapon Brand New has achieved cult status, and attained a rabid fan base that only grew with the release of 2003’s incredible, genre defining Deja Entendu.

The band took there time crafting one of the best albums ever when they recorded 2006’s The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, an album that was at once powerful, graceful and poetic, while pushing their sound to the limit, both technically and emotionally, with tracks like Millstone, Jesus and Degausser.

Daisy finds Brand New straying from their previous clean, well produced style for a dirtier in your face vibe. The change in vibe is not surprising once you learn that guitarist Vincent Accardi took over primary song writing duties from front man Jesse Lacey for this album. The resulting sound is more akin to 90’s grunge than to anything you would have anticipated on the follow up to The Devil and God.

The album starts out with a lilting choral hymn before breaking into Vices, a track that has to be considered the hardest song in Brand New’s catalog. Lacey displays a whole different side to his voice, as he shreds his vocals, while the backing vocals recall a time when Scott Weiland had found the right dose of heroine and condescension and the Stone Temple Pilots still mattered.

The lead single, At The Bottom does a great job of walking the line between the new sound found on Daisy and the direction that they were heading on Devil and God. The dark, pondering lyrics run the theme of death, and burrying a loved one in a way that is distinctly Brand New.

The slow and melodic You Stole is a definite stand out, and is the most reminiscent of Deja Entendu era Brand New, as the song crawls along, with distortion weaving it’s way through the background, creating an oddly simple complexity over which Lacey’s voice can find a place to call home, the way it did on older songs, like Me vs. Maradona vs. Elvis. Lyrics like: So if I’m a liar and you’re a thief/At least we both know where the other one sleeps/So let’s end this tonight , wouldn’t work coming from anyone but Lacey.

Sink is another track where Lacey stretches his vocals in a different direction, alternating between a solid scream and sweet croon, all wrapped up in a utterly frenetic package that delves deep into the darkest places in the soul of Brand New, which is some scary deep darkness.

Both fans and detractors are likely to find issue with different points on Daisy. I did, the first time through, believing that i wasn’t even listening to Brand New. But just as both The Devil and God are Raging Inside me and Deja Entendu are instantly amazing, but require more listening to truly comprehend their depth, Daisy will leave you feeling odd the first time through, but a deeper listen will no doubt lead you to the real Brand New dwelling there within the grungey feedback, and loud choruses. Like a homeless man with a heart of gold. At first you want to avoid him, and not give up your change, but if you stop to talk to him you’ll realize how much depth he truly possess.

Brand New wrote the book on pushing their music in different directions, and although Daisy isn’t the best chapter in the book, it’s still definitely worth reading.

Brand New – Vices
Brand New – At the Bottom
Brand New – You Stole

A man in a gas mask, face fully obscured, flickers in black and white and classic film style on the back wall. His hand rises and the words, I Am The Messenger write themselves across his hand. The crowd is going nuts as Aaron Gillespie walks out onto stage first, and stands on the stool behind his drum kit, arms outstretched, in a Christ like pose, reminiscent of Scott Stapp, but far less arrogant. The rest of Underoath, vocalist Spencer Chamberlin, guitarists Tim McTague and James Smith, bassist Grant Brandell and sample/keyboard player Christopher Dudley, join Gillespie on stage and he leads them into Breathing in a New Mentality with an incredible display of drumming that has to make anyone who would deride the founding member of Underoath and lead singer of The Almost, myself included, take notice of his considerable talent on the drums.

It doesn’t stay a one man show for long, as Spencer Chamberlin, scrawny with more hair than flesh on his body, emits his trademark scream and growling vocals, and McTague and Smith pound out the incredible lines that have made Underoath a tour de force in almost any scene that ends in the word core.

The sounds of an old school projector clicking clue the already insane crowd that Underoath are about to reach back to 2006’s Define the Great Line for In Regards to Myself, giving Gillespie the chance to stretch his vocal chords, singing the hook, “You’re sleeping a bed of shame,” to which Chamerlin growls back “Let the light breathe some new life into this room, It’s what keeps you coming back.”

Neither Underoath or the crowd is letting up as Chamberlin screams the opening words of It’s A Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door from 2006’s genre defining They’re Only Chasing Safety. The crowd croons along with the softer more melodic moments of the song, and chant along in one voice, “I’m drowning in my sleep.” As Chamberlin screams over the chant.

The crowd’s heat and passion are fueling the band as they continue to pound through a set that included. Emergency Broadcast : The End Is Near, I Don’t Feel Very Receptive Today, You’re Ever So Inviting and The Only Survivor Was Miraculously Unharmed.

By the time Gillespie asks, “Can you feel your heart beat racing? Can you taste the fear in her sweat?” The crowd is so hyped that it seems that the roof is going to come off, and when A Boy Brushed Red, Living In Black and White’s break down hits and Chamberlin again unleashes his surprising power, the pit erupts.

The set continues with Desolate Earth: The End Is Hear and Returning Empty Handed, before Chamberlin tells the crowd that they’ve been the best of the tour (cheap pop), and then with his religion planted firmly on his sleeve he does his best to spread the word of Christ without trying to sound like a pretentious ass. The crowd clearly feels it as Jesus gets the biggest pop of the night.

He then announces that this is the last song and they break into Desperate Times, Desperate Measures of their latest release, 2008’s Lost In The Sound of Separation.

Darkness follows but the crowd wants more and Underoath obliges returning for their encore and playing Too Bright To See, Too Loud To Hear and Define’s Writing on The Walls, before retiring for good, and leaving behind a drained and wholly satisfied crowd.

Underoath live is an amazing example of what can happen when talent meets unbridled energy. Gillespie, for all his awkward ginger faults, ie. The Almost, is perhaps, one of the best drummers working today and seeing Underoath live proves one thing, it is definitely Gillespie’s band, but it’s Spencer Chamberlin’s show.

Underoath – A Boy Brushed Red Living In Black And White
Underoath – In Regards To Myself
Underoath – Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

The Town of Pilot Mountain, North Carolina is about an hour north east of Greensboro, and is best known as the real town which served as the inspiration for the fictional town of Mayberry from The Andy Griffith Show. It is from this picturesque setting that Christian Hardcore act A Kiss For Jersey found their passion for music and honed their sound.

A Kiss For Jersey, combine charging riffs with an at odds combination of both soaring and screaming vocals to create a well polished sound, that recalls early Underoath, with better vocals, as lead singer Zach Dawson’s voice is more akin to the soaring wails of The Mars Volta’s Cedric Bixler-Zaval than the high pitched nasal shrills of Aaron Gillespie that dot Underoath’s earlier albums.

On Victims, AKFJ’s follow up to 2006’s Keep Your Head Above Water, which was re-issued in 2008, Dawson, along with guitarists Matt Bean, and Cory Wood, bassist Tyler Lucas and drummer Joey Allan, put their musicianship on display, as they continuously lull the listener into, for lack of a better crack at their religious side, a stat of grace, before hitting their bitch switch and pounding you into the ground with a curdling scream and wailing guitars.

As for their religious side, which they proudly wear on their shoulders the way most bands wear a tattered heart, AKFJ, make no bones about what they believe. The band themselves state that, “One of the main focuses for A Kiss For Jersey is to be able to share their faith in Jesus Christ and his love and forgiveness.”

Their faith is evident in their music as well. The sixth track on Victims, A Tree and It’s Fruit, is just a straight up scripture reading, with some atmospheric guitars and drums, provoking the image of a barren wasteland with but one tree stretching out of the ground towards a bloody sky.

Dawson and Co spare no chance to lay on the Christ in their lyrics. Oh, Infamous City, breaks down into a bombastic Psalm with a call and answer you won’t likely find in an actual church.

Taken away from all we are
Now the walls we shake my God
Faith work your way down every heart
The more we face my God

While Salus Suas Extanderealas Concedit, finds a man both pleading with and accepting God in the face of the death of a loved one, while The Flood, evokes Old Testament Style images of the total destruction.

There is no doubting their faith or their talent, as AKFJ have crafted a solid album, complete with time changes, awesome riffs, soaring vocals, wailing screams and modern genuflecting that will keep you on your knees, whether you’re an alter boy, or someone who wouldn’t be caught dead alone with a priest.

All Jesus aside, A Kiss For Jersey cram a truck load of musical talent into Victims, and it won’t be long till they get noticed and replace Opie and Aunt Bee as the most popular thing to come out of Pilot Mountain.

A Kiss For Jersey – Oh, Infamous City
A Kiss For Jersey – Salus Suas Extanderealas Concedit