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Year in Rock 2011 Nominee: The Horrible Crowes

THE HORRIBLE CROWES
Mary Ann

From: Elsie
Released: September 6

Gaslight Anthem frontman Brian Fallon started exhibiting a soulful disposition on his band's 2010 album American Slang which, while still plenty in line with the aggro-Bruce Springsteen vibe they'd presented previously with breakout album The '59 Sound, displayed a much more versatile and Stax-loving band.  With new side project The Horrible Crowes (brainchild of Fallon and longtime friend and guitar tech Ian Perkins), Fallon expands his sonic palette a little more, revealing some stranger, darker influences.  Elsie was summed up by many reviewers as Gaslight Anthem Lite, and it's inarguable that some of the album does itself no favours in that department; however, the few tracks where Fallon really steps beyond the boundaries of comfort and lays into the unusual are quite pleasing in their own way.  Mary Ann, with its possessed preacher verses and stabs of accordion, sounds something like I'd imagine Tom Waits if they'd banned smoking in nightclubs in 1975.  However, nothing else on Elsie quite usurps it in the thrills department (although Blood Loss admittedly has a much bigger payoff), rendering it ultimately a pretty good album that didn't raise the bar for Fallon, but makes one more excited for what lessons he may have learned in its making that may be applied to the next Gaslight Anthem release.

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