“I Am a Nightmare” all but confirms what “Mene” already hinted at: Brand New is on the verge of returning to their pop-punk roots.
Seven years. That’s how long it has been since Brand New has released a full length LP, and diehard fans are starting to lose patience with the band’s constant game of cat and mouse, teasing us with a single here or there before completely falling off the face of the Earth for another 365 days. It’s been a tiring wait, but it appears as if our collective patience is finally going to be rewarded. According to a Procrastinate! Music Traitors information report, the band is confirmed for a 2016 physical release of some kind, although it does not specify whether the format will be an LP or EP. Speaking from experience with the band, though, they’ve never been very big on extended plays – with the last release of this type coming via 2003’s The Holiday. If I were a betting man, I’d say we can expect to be listening to Brand New’s fifth full-length album before the year draws to an end, and that’s an exciting prospect considering the mythical status that the long awaited LP has garnered.
2015 saw the release of “Mene”, a punchy pop-rock number that harkened back to the days of Your Favorite Weapon and, even more so, Deja Entendu. The directional switch up seemed to catch more than a few of the group’s disciples off guard, which is altogether both surprising and not really surprising at all. The band’s most recent albums, The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me and Daisy were dark, heavy, and angst-ridden – not to mention enormously successful – and together they not only ushered in a new found maturity for the band, but they also seemed to enshrine them in a cult-like niche that is the envy of any indie-rock band these days. So to hear “Mene” as it was, a 2:30 long pop-rocker, almost felt like a quip of some kind…as if Brand New were going to turn around a few days later, yell “gotcha”, and then reveal something far more towering and appropriate. That wasn’t the case however; the band basically went back into hiding (other than the semi-legitimate release of “Sealed to Me“) and we never heard from them again until now. The official release of “I Am a Nightmare” all but confirms what “Mene” had already hinted at: Brand New is on the verge of returning to their pop-punk roots.
As a standalone track, “I Am a Nightmare” is a little bit underwhelming. For those of us who grew to love Jesse Lacey’s existential/religious laments and the soul-shattering screams that defined the band from 2006-2009, a return to pop-punk feels…dry. There’s almost a feeling of betrayal that’s hard to ignore – I mean how does one go from the spiritual poetry of “Jesus”, the deranged cries on “Vices”, or the creepy undertones that span throughout “Noro” – and then suddenly come out the other end unscathed and back to singing in perfect harmony? Where’s the resolution? What the hell even happened over the last seven years? Amidst these types of questions, it’s important to keep expectations in check. Whenever a band has stayed off the map as long as Brand New has, there’s typically this assumption that the group has been slaving away, with nothing but time to craft the ultimate masterpiece to define their career and delight their fans. But how often is that actually the case? Behind the veil of unrealistic expectations and zealous fandom, these are just people living their lives. Things come up. Shit happens. Inspiration comes and goes. For all we know Lacey and company sat down and wrote “I Am a Nightmare” last week.
The evidence doesn’t support a lack of preparation though. For as basic as “Mene” and “I Am a Nightmare” feel within the context of the past couple albums, they’re not poorly crafted. There’s a noticeable uptick in influences that can be traced back to The Smiths, which while always present in Brand New’s discography (and even name-checked), were never fully pursued as an actual musical direction. Deja Entendu was likely the closest they ever came to sounding like them – or their other idol, Morrissey – as it was also their most straightforwardly pop offering, even if it came to us intertwined with generous helpings of punk and emo. “I Am a Nightmare” definitely finds itself in the same arena as that record, which coincidentally was also their most commercially successful, remaining a sentimental fan favorite to this day. The problem with Brand New’s latest offerings (“Mene” included) isn’t so much that they’re hinting at a return to roots, it’s that it feels like the band is returning to them because they have nowhere else to go. For a band that has constantly reinvented themselves over the entire course of their existence (literally no two albums have sounded even remotely alike), this presents a bit of a conundrum. If they exhausted whatever avenues existed in the dark, alt-rock corners of Daisy, then the assumption based on their track record would be that they’ll pursue something else wildly new and unexpected. Perhaps a chillwave/folkish album? It’s not totally off-base considering the secretive leak of “Out of Range“, a track that sounded like Modest Mouse joined forces with an electronically minded production team. But that’s not the case. Brand New seems to find themselves back at square one for the first time ever.
The problem with Brand New’s latest offerings (“Mene” included) isn’t so much that they’re hinting at a return to roots, it’s that it feels like the band is returning to them because they have nowhere else to go.
For as unexpectedly expected as “I Am a Nightmare” sounds, there’s a lot to enjoy that goes well beyond the faint disappointment of familiarity. For one, it’s insanely catchy. Even if you’re not the biggest fan of the song, you’ll find yourself replaying it in your head after merely one listen. The lyrics prove that Lacey hasn’t lost his edge, penning lines like “among alien dunes, you are a pale vision of blue / and I’m a second sail, a saved thief, so go save someone else” or “my heart is glowing fluorescent, I want you to possess it / I’m not a prophecy come true, I’ve just been goddamn mean to you.” They’re more cryptic than the heart-on-your-sleeves offerings of Deja or TDAGARIM – kind of along the lines of Daisy in that sense – but at least there is definitive substance here, a conclusion that might be easy to overlook given the repetitive onslaught of the title-mirroring chorus. The overall tone of the song is just about as upbeat and energetic as we’ve ever heard Brand New, too. The instrumentation, from the punk-ish drumming to the interplay of buzzing guitar solos and crashing chords, screams a more mature Your Favorite Weapon, which is a notion that the post-chorus excerpt “give me pure energy” inadvertently backs up. Several years back, Lacey was quoted in an interview as saying that they were tired of depressing their fans and that they wanted to create something happier. I’m not entirely sure how much anyone believed him at the time, especially given the downward spiral of moods across Brand New’s catalogue, but it’s looking more and more like he meant every word.
At the end of the day, these are an awful lot of presumptuous conclusions to draw after hearing one track (or two, if you count “Mene”). Perhaps Brand New’s fifth LP will be their darkest yet, or maybe all the press releases pointing to a 2016 release date are all hokum and we won’t see anything until 2020 – or never. It’s always hard to tell with this band. However, all logic and intuition seems to suggest that Brand New will release an album this year, and that “I Am a Nightmare” is a fair barometer of what to expect. It won’t satisfy the immense craving for a worthy follow-up to The Devil and God or Daisy, but it’s a refreshing change of pace pointing back to the band’s sprightly and youthful pop-punk beginnings.
Song Score: 3.0 / 5 (Good)
