Most of us are familiar with the work of Brian Fallon. His tenure as the vocalist of Gaslight Anthem made him a beacon for raging punk rockers armed with acoustic guitars and a lot of anti-capitalist rhetoric and anecdotes of heartbreak. Their sound was akin to those punks bred in the stylings of folk and rockabilly whose songs felt as if they were written originally as acoustic ballads that were just plugged in, away all the boots and leather and spikes and was just raw emotion and vulnerability. It was a niche that they, along with their peers in the Menzingers, the Lawrence Arms, and Banner Pilot all graciously filled.
Fallon’s foray into solo work surges with heartland rock prestige boasting a Tom Waitts meets Don McLean presentation. Some of it was really soft, moody and introspective whereas elsewhere you can hear more of the rebellious energy that fueled rock ‘n’ roll’s essence. After 2021’s Night Divine, which was mostly him brooding over a piano singing some rather sullen moments, we were ready for that JOLT to get us excited about rock music again.
Enter Not Bad for New Jersey! It’s a pretty well-rounded record with plenty of guest musicians featured in the mix. The title track opens up the album with some bravado in its upbeat tone and a chorus designed for crowd participation, cementing itself as an anthem for Jersey-ites. There are a few uppity tracks on here like “Nobody Likes You in NYC” recounting none other than DeeDee Ramone’s drug-addled teenage dream, as if it were being told from the perspective of his ex-wife Vera Boldis.
“Fading On Me” brings back some of that classic rock charm radiating with Thin Lizzy energy in the guitar tone and Fallon letting his voice get very Screamin’ Jay Hawkins at times. “Somewhere You Shouldn’t Be” has great groove with a very prominent bass line and everyone firing on all cylinders in the bouncy sing-along chorus “I’ll be waiting.” Meanwhile, the guitar shreds in the background courtesy of none other than Def Leppard’s Phil Collen.
There are plenty of softer, and arguably sadder inclusions on here. “Better Before” goes a bit of a Midwest emo route—Fallon sings over a muted guitar riff in the verse about weighing your options of being in a toxic relationship, and the chorus gives us that kickstart to get us jumping up and down singing “Hello! Hello! Is there someone I could talk to? Hello! Hello! Is there somebody there?”
“Pearls” is a very somber acoustic ballad in which Fallon sings a tribute about a woman living that high-profile New York life. He doesn’t sing out of envy, but out of pride, in that he’s where he is not because of privilege. “The Big Sleep” is about another girl, only this time it’s personal. It’s a one-sided series of thoughts in which Fallon’s reminiscence of this individual keeps him up at night listening to that call of the void. The folk artist Donovan Woods helps out a lot with the performance in the chorus offering up some additional backing vocals.
“On Good Terms” carries the energy of a country ballad with soft drumming and bottleneck guitar leads. It’s dripping with the delicate motions that two people who were once a couple go through when they have to move on not knowing whether or not they will be worse for wear. With country singer Lori McKenna singing along in the chorus, it helps lend to the notion that he’s not the only one thinking this.
It really hits hard in the closing line “And if you see me somewhere shining like gold, pretend that I’m someone that you don’t know.” Fallon also get his friend Brandon Flowers of the Killers to join him on the beautiful acoustic number “Love at the End of the World,” a love song that takes place during the end of times. It’s a beautiful song with maracas and slide guitars, although there is no chorus, Flowers’ sultry vocals adds enough layers to give the illusion that there is one.
“Walkin’ Through the Garden” is quite a creeper with these sinister guitar chords and haunting melodic swells in the background. Using clever word play referencing the Garden of Eden, Fallon strings together a tale of a two-timing lover: “Where are you baby? I can hear your little heart. Have you been eating from the apple tree?
“I kept my lantern burning so she’d come back to me. I think I saw the devil in the backseat,” “Now the serpent, he was subtle, more than all our other troubles, and he spoke the words that I couldn’t speak.”
Bookending the album from the stimulating opening title track with “Wolf By the River” is a fantastic rock ‘n’ roll rager pulsating with lumbering blues riffs and guitar legend Marc Ribot’s super intoxicating solos. Fallon revives his gravelly blues voice and tells a rather disturbing tale of murder with some very choice words—“I felt the tightness of your clutching fingers around my throat, you were singing,” “shut your mouth baby, I’m coming to set you free. With a thistle and a whistle and a grave I need to dig,” and “why, in my youth, would you strike me down/and he replied, with a smile, ‘I’m a wolf, after all, my darling.’” That’s a bit of a dark ending to this album packed with heartbreak and woe.
This album is pretty evenly loaded with its execution. There’s a lot to be said about the journey of heartbreak and some of its grave implications but it also gives us time to turn off our brains and enjoy the fun times. The breadth of musical exhibition on this record is impressive and the shifting styles add to the mood each song is trying to convey. The front half does tend to linger on the down and gloomy parts a little too long. If the track listing was shifted around to even it out, I think it would’ve helped with the album’s flow. Overall, a very good effort from Brian Fallon—He’s still very honest in his lyrics and the emotions therein and he’s utilized each guest musicians’ ability to get them across.
