ACL Music Fest 2014 Sunday Review

The Gaslight Anthem

Get Hurt (Island)

Any lyric Brian Fallon puts to song could be scribed in tattoo ink across a banner draped on a heart. He's a hopeless romantic, introspective poet, and author with a strong sense of imagery. All those avenues to advanced writing come through on the Gaslight Anthem's fifth studio LP Get Hurt, a stylistically diverse collection that reaches for the stars, but can't touch the gold standard of the Jersey boys' 2010 hit American Slang. Amped opener "Stay Vicious," one of five tracks experimenting with hard rock riffage, shoots for Nirvana yet generates Nickelback. Conversely, pay dirt arrives in the ambitiously produced slow rock of "Underneath the Ground," pondering a loved one's reaction to the songwriter's death. The similarly styled title track withers as neutered, mid-tempo rock unworthy of a Kings of Leon B-side. Redemption comes not with April's impression of Tom Waits ("Anywhere I Lay My Head") or country rock ("Mama's Boys"), but with taking their bread-n-butter rock & roll to dramatic heights on "Selected Poems." (4pm, Samsung Galaxy stage)