You could be forgiven for falling away from your Brand New obsession in the years since Daisy. As the length between albums goes Brand New even beat Radiohead (a band they are frequently compared to) in how long ravenous fans have waited for new material. Brand New are the rare band that inspire a huge level of obsession as Jesse Lacey and co have went from pop-punk upstarts to providing the soundtrack to an entire generations deepest and darkest thoughts. I personally loved Daisy: the bands divisive 2009 album, and would have been quite happy if that was the band's last release. But hey, I can be an idiot sometimes because their latest, and last album, Science Fiction, is a solid gold masterpiece.
To review an album like this, one that will most certainly have a place in the iconic albums of this decade club, is almost too daunting. It's a sprawling, hugely ambitious collection of songs, moods, and another frank discussion of mental health. It thrills, and terrifies in equal measure. Think of it as the musical equivalent of Bojack Horsemen, only the jokes are just as scary.
We begin with "Lit Me Up", with Lacey crooning about having to "burn like a witch in a puritan town", an acknowledgment to the pressure that he is under by just being the frontman of this band. Brand New fans, and I include myself in this as well, are all too happy to have Lacey investigate the ugly parts of his psyche in order for us to relate, and the toll that this has taken on him is all over the album. "Waste" has Lacey promise himself that this musical tour of his soul will be the last one. Lacey isn't being ungrateful, he is being human.
In terms of the bands discography, Science Fiction shares the ambition, but not quite the sound, of The Devil and God are Raging inside of Me. In many ways, despite a recurring motif of water that may be Lacey and the band killing their image by drowning, Science Fiction is more of a positive album, eve a hopeful one. Still, this is Brand New, s0o there is still the chilling account of a Trump supporter on "Desert", and album closer "Batter Up" has an elegiac quality to it.
What is obvious about this album is that there is nothing else like it out there, a truly unique release in 2017 by a band that have made sure that they will never be forgotten, with an album that has probably inspired a new generation of musicians.
