Brand New

This band named its latest effort The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me. And it sounds like the devil is getting all the better punches in as Jesse Lacey leads Brand New through moments as explosive as the chorus hook of “Sowing Season,” howling “Yeah” as though the word were somehow packed with meaning. Then, he turns around and hits you with, “Before you put my body in the cold ground, take some time and warm it with your hands.” Having long since abandoned the textbook pop-punk of its first release, Brand New arrives here at a stunning operatic grandeur while decisively out-rocking damn near anything remotely operatic and/or grand since the Deftones responded to OK Computer with White Pony. This is Brand New’s finest hour, both their most emotionally jarring effort and the one that just might help them leave that dreaded emo tag behind. There’s not a “Jude Law and the Summer Abroad” in sight as Lacey catalogs his open wounds and existential crises in a vocal style that ranges from a whisper to some of the more convincing howls of terror in the business.