Band of the Year? Already?

I honestly can't remember the last time I was this excited about a debut album. Not being a British music fan/writer, I'm not prone to the hyperbole that afflicts my stout-swilling counterparts across the pond. As such, I do not make it an NME-esque habit of declaring every single new drug-addled ponce to be the one true savior of gen-yoo-wine rock 'n' roll.

Today, however, I am that giddy twat. The Gaslight Anthem's debut platter, Sink or Swim, has me all a-twitter, and I've played it so much at work that my co-workers are secretly plotting to storm my office with torches and pitchforks once burning me in effigy no longer holds the same thrill it once did. I can't help it. Sink or Swim is all killer no filler, packed with melodic guitar assaults and whiskey-soaked vocals that make me think of nothing so much as it does the Lawrence Arms meets Lucero (with a dash of Darkness on the Edge of Town-era Bruce Springsteen for flavor). "We Came to Dance" might be my song of the year, as the band uses melancholy roots-punk to spin a tale of people finding joy in drinking and dancing to the jukebox, no matter what's going on outside ("and in this unstable arena/of what's left of what's become my America/I'm asking this dance, so come take my hand"). John Fogerty would be proud. Elsewhere, the feisty rockers "Boomboxes and Dictionaries" and "We're Getting a Divorce (You Keep the Diner)" just rock the hell out (the ending of the latter is especially killer).

The epic "I Would'a Called You Woody, Joe" pays tribute to hero worship-worthy Joe Strummer five years after his death - and it STILL socks you right in the gut. Maybe it affects you differently than it does me, but in an age of cunts who ASPIRE to be self-absorbed losers, it made me miss Joe more than ever.

Overall, this album is insanely well-written, played with gusto, and Brian Fallon sings like a man afraid of last call, and it's always perfect, even on the quiet ballad "Navesink Banks." I don't have any MP3s yet (it just came out on the 29th), but the whole thing is streaming up Punknews. It would behoove you to check it out, since this is a band you're going to hear me prattling on and on about for a good long while. Might as well know what he hell I'm blathering on about. Go ahead. Listen to "We Came to Dance" and "1930." I dare you to not listen to the rest of the record after hearing those two numbers.

http://www.punknews.org/bands/gaslightanthem