Review: The Gaslight Anthem – Get Hurt

People grow and change with age—it’s expected. Just look at the writing style of Laura Jane Grace on Against Me!’s first album and compare it to Transgender Dysphoria Blues. Sometimes there is an awkward phase, like Bob Dylan’s Street Legal, and Get Hurt is The Gaslight Anthem’s awkward phase. Overproduced and lacking in any sincerity, I haven’t felt this turned off by an album since hearing Hanni El Khatib. It sounds good, but this ode to the butt-rockin’ Nickelback lifestyle isn’t for me. “Baby I was born on the Fourth of July/Exploding like a firework, aw yeah,” Brian Fallon sings in “Rollin’ and Tumblin’.” C’mon, Fallon. I love you guys for your Springsteen-like grittiness, but I can’t find any of it here. Please take the year off, find yourself and release another album next year that sounds nothing like Get Hurt. Love you! –Alex Cragun