"Not gone but fading fast,
So let me put to rest the only question that you'll ask,
We don't feel anything."
~Mene
Brand New
It's finally here.
Six years since their last release, with a criminally slow build-up of teasing and hint-dropping of new material, Brand New gave their fans something to listen to on this random spring Monday.
It's barely two and a half minutes. It rips fast and ferocious. It kinda makes you want to rage. It makes me want more - so much more! - of new riffs and Jesse harmonizing with himself on snarling hooks. "We don't feel anything," he declares - is that why we haven't heard new music in six years? Because for all your heralded brilliance and iconic anthems, you haven't had anything worthwhile to say since your last album turned into something of a disappointment? Oh. Thanks for clarifying.
I will take it.
"Mene" doesn't say much about a change in their direction as a band out of context - does a single mean an album? Does their live performance of this, followed so quickly by a recording, tease a larger forthcoming announcement? I would like to think so. It's new Brand New, and so the world has to stop spinning for a minute, all the blog posts have to be written, and all the speculation has to culminate with a whole bunch of question marks as to their next steps.
No one is worse to their fans than Brand New. As such, no one has more devoted fans, left parched enough for any drop of activity to swallow with gleeful greed (like that Instagram wipe-and-post over the weekend). I am going to play this song probably a dozen more times today, I am going to memorize it, I am going to learn all the words and hum the parts and I will go back and listen to the rest of their discography in celebration of a band that I cannot, will not give up on - even when they give fans very little to hang on for.In their defense, giving it away as a free download is a fan-friendly and biz-smart move.
I generally roll my eyes at old sayings and cliche phrases used as central tenants in reviews & writings, but this time, I can only think of one thing to say and it's as recycled as the best of them:
Good things come to those who wait.
