Apr 18, 2026 at 12:56 PM

Brand New - The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me
I'm sure that this isn't an original experience, but I browse a lot of music forums, and there are a couple of albums that I recognize mainly based off off of their covers covers through discussions, collages, etc. There are a couple of examples that I can remember off the top of my head (69 Love Songs, Merriweather Post Pavillion, etc.) and The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me is one of those records. The cover is so d--- striking, and it instantly grabs your attention. A few months back, Jimmy put a song from this album on one of his tapes, and I thought it was pretty good, so I figured that I would end up checking the project in full eventually. I've mentioned this before, but there's something especially nice about seeing a selected album that you've been wanting to check out for some time, and considering that I've really enjoyed JJ's previous picks, I was pretty excited to hop in.

"Sowing Season..." is a stellar intro. I'm a big sucker for songs that start slow, and have these incredible big bursts of energy throughout ("Rid of Me" by PJ Harvey is another good example). "Millstone" is great too, and it sounds like something that I would've repeated endlessly during High School, which is pretty neat. "Jesus Christ" was great lyrically, although I am a bit surprised to see that it was a single. "Degausser" is AMAZING. I was listening to this record inside of a University library, and I'm telling you, fighting off the urge to just start headbanging along during the chorus was really, reallyyyy difficult. "Limousine" was pretty nice when it was included on one of JJ's tapes, and I still think it's pretty good, and I feel like it's placement on the album adds to the experience in a way. "You Won't Know" is another pretty d--- good energetic track, and "Not the Sun" was great too.

Now I do have to address something, which isn't really an "issue" but more of a personal taste thing. TDaGaRIM is classified as an Emo record, and I've personally always been kinda mixed on emo music as a whole. I've liked some emo records in the past (Pinkerton is considered to be emo by some people, and I still like MCR quite a bit, even though a lot of fans debate over whether they're emo or not), but I've never really "gotten" the genre y'know? This record has a lot of high points that I'll be coming back too, but I do admit that this difference in taste does impact my enjoyment a bit. Still, everything is pretty d--- good, Jesse Lacey is a very good vocalist with a d--- good pen, and all the instrumentation is great. So even though I'm not that big into emo, I had a pretty good time with this record, and I sincerely thank @Jimmy Jazz for the pick.
FAVORITES: Sowing Season, Degausser, Limousine, You Don't Know
Rating: 8/10
@AOTWClub @Justin Trudeau