Screamo for grown ups

To put it simpler BN is the emo band for the thinking man and grown ups. This makes sense when you think about it. On their first CD, 2001’s Your Favorite Weapon, lead singer Jesse Lacey and the band stuck to the genera and cried about that girl that left them. But on their 2003 follow up Deja Entendu they went in a different direction and this time started to take personal account and blame for the girl leaving. This album was also the set up for the bands future favorite topics death,loss and religion with “Guernica”. Three years later the release of The Devil and God Are Raging inside of Me became the moment the band decided to turn to the dark side. Now three years later with Daisy, the band has settled down there, planted roots, barricaded themselves in and have no intentions of coming out alive. The journey of this band is the transition of young men to full grown adults into pure self reflection and higher consciousness.

Daisy is easily the bands most divisive CD to date, it refuses to let you in and understand. When the Devil and God first came out half BN fans and critics hated it and thought it was crap the other half liked it but thought it could be better. Almost two years later the same crowd unanimously agreed it was their best CD ever and some calling it the best alt rock CD of the year/ past five years/ past ten. It took me two months alone to figure out what was going on in the song Jesus Christ. This is the formula BN is sticking with on Daisy. If it took them three years to make this album you better be sure it will take you three years to fully understand it. First listen its mostly just angry screaming and you cant make out any words. You’ll play it for days straight trying to make sense. There’s a copy in your car, on you personal Laptop and at your work computer. You’ll take a break from it and try and listen to something else but then give up and come back to it. The songs will leave you feeling angry and dark but you don’t even know what their about.

It’s a Rubik’s Cube with half the colors missing and you have to solve it with one hand. The album as a whole contradicts itself most songs are fast and hard about 3:15 of pure adrenaline but then, “You stole”, “Noro” and “Daisy” almost hypnotize you to sleep with sweetness and sensitivity. There’s always “surprises” or side action in the songs that just don’t fit at first but make sense later. The female opera/ church singing in the opener (Vices) and closer (Noro). The random preacher requesting a song in the beginning of Daisy and the kids talking in the middle of it.

Which brings us the strongest part of Daisy and BN in general the lyrics. This is the best part of BN’s game and this time around guitarist Vincent Accardi wrote most of the songs instead of Jesse. The same religious references are there from The Devil and God but there is repetition in imagery of forrest and beds. The lyrics are what’s not to be trusted. On Noro Jesse could be singing “I’m on my way to hell” or “I’m on my way out” one of the tricks BN has been working on that works well here. Sometimes the words and phrases make no sense side by side but subconsciously evoke a story, subliminal juxtaposition. Other times though the genius of it all hits you square in the jaw like in the song “At the Bottom”

“A deer that a hunter shot in the heart
Some dogs that got hit by cars
All came to spill their guts

And we spoke
About the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
And which songs we had loved the most
And then we all turned to dirt
And dust ”

At the Bottom

Daisy

In a Jar

After listening to Daisy for a while I tried to go back to the band’s other CDs. I couldn’t. Even The Devil and God sounded like pop music. Daisy has done it’s job, forced the fans to either follow and move forward or be left behind. This CD will hunt you and leave you with more questions than answers. But three years from now we might all get it, just in time for their next CD.