Science Fiction

At the time I skipped Brand New as I thought I did not like emo. As I discovered with "The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me", oh boy how wrong was I. Science Fiction is their last album and the music is a bit less heavy overall. That's not a band thing and "Lit Me Up", "Can't Get It Out" and "137" are fantastic songs.

I had not heard of this band before. I enjoyed it, may check out some more of their stuff. I really enjoyed reading on their Wikipedia page about the feud with the band Taking Back Sunday. 4 stars.

"The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me" is one of my favorite albums of all time, but the rest of Brand New's catalogue doesn't really do much for me. It's pretty good Emo, more "indie rock" than the former album, but nothing groundbreaking or all that exciting. Maybe needs another listen.

Very cool album!

Science Fiction is the Brand New's final album before their first disbandment. It comes after an eight-year period following the band's previous album, which usually means normal things for a band that continually hinted at disbanding leading up to this release. Despite the delays, Science Fiction landed wonderfully while showcasing the band's inner turmoils with each song's introspection. Makes me think there's a whole legacy underneath an album like this. CONTENDER FOR THE LIST: No. Maybe one of the band's earlier albums would be better-suited.

The Devil and God are Raging Inside of Me is good but I really like this one much better. It is darker and more chill/relaxed. Something I really need in my life sometimes. I can listen to the album on repeat with no problem and never get bored or tired of a sound of song. 4/5

oh, more Brand New yeah I enjoyed TDaGaRIM; this was fine, less enjoyable but still alright - 7/10 Jesse Lacey can still go to hell

Decent

Rating: 7/10 Best songs: Lit me up, Same logic/teeth, Desert

Don’t think I’ve ever listened to this album before, I was a massive fan of Deja Entendu, so really enjoyed this didn’t realise their later stuff was still a high standard, great album to end the band on, got to be the top of their Genre.

They're almost there. The vocals are in the uncanny valley between clean and interesting

Underrated last album, I pull this out for fall fire pit nights.

This is a real find- very atmospheric and intruiging. A good album to put forward. I need to listen to them more I think for them to gel.

Good stuff

Better than expected. Kind of a somber 90's vibe

I think I always confused this band with Days of the New. Better than I feared when it popped up.

Couldn’t really engage with this unfortunately

Whiny singing, guitars, a touch of electronic noise, weird samples. Some songs were interesting, some were offputting. Nothing I'd listen to again, but I can see why someone likes it and it is different.

The other Brand New album I got from the user's list ("The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me") really caught me, and it's now one of my favorites. It didn't happen with this one, and they are indeed quite different. It could just be my mood today, but it's a 2-star album. I'll raise it to 3 out of respect for my good memories of having a new great band in my personal favorites list, even if just for a single album.

I thought I liked Brand New but this record had no teeth. I remembered them having teeth. I went back and listened to the other big record and sure enough, there they were. I guess they ran out of gas?

Portentious alt rock, a little overserious for me without making me feel a whole lot of anything. The more acoustic, lighter interludes (in the audio, not the affect sense) helped move it around a bit, but not quite enough.

Overly long meh sounding indie rock. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

Tunes were decent but too consistently slow. Brand New is capable of bangers

Yep it's Brand New alright

Coming about 15 years after I stopped listening to Brand New, I found this album enjoyable. Glad to see they spent the 2010s evolving their sound a bit, even if I far prefer the earlier stuff.

I guess this was fine.

Indie rock, alternative rock, emo, post-hardcore, experimental rock. Ni fu ni fa.

One of those USA bands that never crossed the pond. We have plenty of British bands that didn't cross the other way. Both probably for good reason - culture, taste etc. But often because for all the whimsy they don't have any hits or stand out songs. This is all very nice, and you can imagine a perfectly pleasant intimate gig but not a single song will stick in your mind once you have left.

Tough one, both for the LP itself and allegations surrounding the band’s frontman. I enjoyed when each track crescendoed into a biting wall of guitars, the mix perfectly accentuating the well-executed vocals against the layered instrumentals. The journey to get there, however, gets way too repetitive as each song insists on an A-B structure with an extended slower intro. There’s little structural contrast between the tracks, and makes the album drag and feel longer than it should. There’s an incredible album in here, it’s just buried under some editorial decisions that make it feel a bit bloated in its current state. As for the allegations against frontman Jesse Lacey, I did some research and found how he has A) sincerely apologized and B) gone to treatment and put in work to fix himself. That doesn’t excuse his behavior or unfortunate asterisk that now rides on the band’s work, but it does suggest that the outfit doesn’t contain active sex pests who continue to harm people. Always a tough conversation on how to view art marred by the actions of its creators, felt it was necessary to highlight my discomfort here as the allegations had kept me from listening to Brand New before this.

Something and nothing to write home about on first listen.

Brand New's brand of indie-emo never impressed me and Science Fiction doesn't either. Same Logic/Teeth is good but this lacks either the swagger you want from good indie or the angst you want from good emo, it just sits in the middle in a very boring way. 2.

Rather generic sounding, it didn't really add much to the genre or to the list

This had some parts I really liked, and some less so. Interesting listen but didn’t care for some of the messages.

Forgettable