The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me

I'm sitting here listening to Brand New's The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me (out Tuesday). Honestly I don't even know where to begin. Or where to end. I'm just going to ramble for a while, I guess. If endless ebullient blubbering isn't your thing, the take-home message will be this: It's GOOD.

At 21 years old, a man in body but not yet in mind, I was an emotional wreck. Nobody's fault but my own. I know that now. But then, oh then. No record in the world could have fallen into my lap and done for me what Your Favorite Weapon did. God, I played the shit out of that. Over and over. I'm lucky my roommates didn't kill me. The vitriol.

Is that what you call tact?
You're as subtle as a brick in the small of my back.

And then the summer of 2003. Deja Entendu never left my cd player. It was darker. More grown up. There was responsibility in the lyrics. Turns out Jesse wasn't able to stay 18 forever, stay like that forever. Turns out it's more complicated. Turns out life on the road isn't all parties and fun. Turns out people expect a lot from you when you're their favorite band. They expect a whole lot from you, and you're just a kid.

And we won't let you in...

And the critics got on board. A major label deal. And then three years of silence. Cancelled shows. Was the pressure too much?

8 untitled, unfinished songs leak. More silence. And then a few shows. A small tour. A bigger tour. Videos of the new songs start to surface on youtube. The faithful work themselves into a frenzy. We knew it was going to be good. We knew they'd come through.

My bright is much too slight to hold back all my dark

Believe me when I tell you that it's better than you thought it would be. That it was worth the wait. I haven't even had time for all of it to sink in, yet. But believe me, believe me, believe me. Believe me. It's good.