Review Summary: Daisy is the slightly mentally unstable cousin that you only really see at the occasional family get-together who just goes around making weird faces and shouting "WE NEED VICES!" really loud at you.
Let's face it--- Jesse Lacey has become an absolute nutbag, Whether one liked
The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me and hated Brand New's fourth release,
Daisy, vice versa, or had some other odd combination of preferences, they cannot deny that some event in between the two latest album's releases caused him to go absolutely bonkers. Hate the so-called new direction the band is headed? Lacey couldn't care less. He's probably lathering himself in peanut butter while dancing in his grandmother's panties right now, so obviously what some shmuck thinks of his latest record is the least of his worries at the moment.
If
Your Favorite Weapon could be described as a little sister,
Deja Entendu and
The Devil and God are rival siblings, and
Daisy is the slightly mentally unstable cousin that you only really see at the occasional family get-together and just goes around making weird faces and shouting "WE NEED VICES!" really loud at you. There isn't too much on
Daisy that could be considered inviting, and you'd be hard-pressed to find too many accessible moments outside of the first and last minutes of the album. This isn't to say Brand New has evolved into some sort of prog-metal behemoth spewing out ten-minute epics at will, but where the band's first three releases chose to sugar-coat their riffs and sheath their blades at times,
Daisy holds nothing back (just compare "Be Gone" to "Untitled"). While this style often walks the line between captivating ("Gasoline") and messy ("In a Jar"), it's refreshing to hear the band inject some chaos into tracks like opener "Vices," in which a mellow opening segment is cut short by Lacey's frantic screams.
Still,
Daisy isn't a total dismissal of the band's former sound. If there's one skill Lacey has possessed throughout his tenure as Brand New's vocalist, it's the ability to convey his emotion to the listener. On "Jude Law and a Semester Abroad," you felt his hopelessness. When the guitars came in on "Limousine," you wanted to cry. And when he shouted "A storm is coming in" in "Degausser," you ran to go check your local weather listings.
Daisy doesn't possess the same raw emotion of either of the band's prior two albums, but Lacey and company are still more than able to work up some power, as is evident from "Sink"'s explosive chorus, which will be followed by more than a few nervous glances over your shoulder in case he decides to hold true on his shrieked promise that he's "coming to get you." "You Stole" is a mellow, mid-tempo standout that is reminiscent of a better (yes, better) "Jesus Christ," and "At the Bottom" is as slick and polished as Brand New gets on the album.
The one aspect that really holds back
Daisy as compared to earlier efforts is the lack of an inventive sound. With
The Devil and God, Brand New seemed to be carving out their own path. While
Daisy isn't a step backwards musically, it treads ground that other bands have walked before much more so than
The Devil and God or even
Deja. A couple tracks, namely "In a Jar," fall flat due to a repetitive instrumental formula (the slow verses followed by the explosive, screaming choruses in "Sink" and "Bought a Bride" grow a little tiresome) and over-reliance on Lacey's vocals. Still,
Daisy is enjoyable as what it is--- a lovable mess. It's not magnificent and it's certainly not pretty, but it surprisingly satisfies expectations more than an attempt to recreate past glory would have.
