August 22, 2017 | BY: JENN PELLY
It comes in a split second at the 4:22 mark. With one savvy musical shift, Brand New capture the spark that has ignited their whole catalog since they emerged a decade and a half ago as global ambassadors for Long Island, N.Y.’s melodic-hardcore sound. “Same Logic/Teeth” moves—dramatically, ecstatically—from bricks to candy, from scathing post-hardcore thrash to immaculate pop-punk harmonies, all in the blink of a darkly-lined eye.
With this one turn, we are reminded that Brand New—despite their latter-day shift from emo confessionals to blistering Jesus Lizard worship; despite their lifelong dedication to burying their past (“Brand New Wants to Die Just as Much As You Want Them Dead,” read an early-2000s T-shirt of theirs)—remain four quiet guys from the South shore who once wrote the syrupy made-for-away-messages line “If you were a telephone, you’d still be off the hook.” No matter how ugly their music aspires to be, it always goes down easy: Brand New make brutalist bubblegum. That’s how this cult band from the suburbs of New York City went from being a calling card among mall-punks to stuff the popular kids listened to, and it’s why Brand New are slated to claim an unusually high spot on the Billboard 200 for their fifth album, Science Fiction, their first in eight years.