The Gaslight Anthem

It is a good time for the Gaslight Anthem to return to us, and to return to us as if they were barely
ever gone. I will tell anyone who will listen (which, by my count, is far too many people) that time
feels especially steeped in illusions of pace. The days seem slow, but the months speed by. It is
sometimes hard to pull apart the distance between my present self, and the younger self, who once
drove through the night to get to Jersey just in time to stand in line for tickets to a Gaslight Anthem
show, and I’m not necessarily sure I’d absolutely need to pull the two apart if not for the realities of
age, of time, of grief. It is good to hear a band that isn’t afraid to grow older. Maybe even better to
have a band who, in their songs, seem somewhat joyfully bewildered by the dilemma of ongoing
survival. Which, to be clear, is a bewildering one.

More than that, it all feels comfortable and familiar. Like you’ve been away from home for a
long time, and you’ve come back to not just one familiar face, but a whole choir of them. All of
them want to tell you the good word of what has transpired since you’ve been away from each other.
Someone’s a little older. Someone fell in love, and then out of love, but wouldn’t you know it, they
fell in love again. Someone died, but more of us are still here. This album feels like ten different
homecomings in one. All of them delivering the best news.

-Hanif Abdurraqib