Album Review: Brian Fallon Painkillers

With The Gaslight Anthem on hiatus, frontman Brian Fallon releases his debut solo album. Mind you, it’s not just Fallon and his acoustic guitar.

Rather, the New Jersey singer decamped to Nashville and put together a band from the upper echelons of Americana/country society, including bassist Catherine Popper (Jack White, Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, Willie Nelson), drummer Mark Stepro (Ben
Kweller, Jackson Browne) and uber-producer Butch Walker, who has also twiddled knobs for the likes of Taylor Swift and Keith Urban.

The result is unmistakably Fallon (it’s hard to deny his trademark vocal rasp), but with added southern torch and twang. The Gaslight Anthem’s albums have drawn plenty of comparison to New Jersey’s most famous son, and most of that is down to Fallon’s
songwriting, which calls to mind the kind of inclusive blue collar singalongs that Springsteen has been belting out for decades. This ability to write instantly
memorable crowd-pleasers is a big asset, and Fallon has it in spades, from the driving rock of lead single ‘A Wonderful Life’ to the infectious melancholia of ‘Nobody Wins’ and on through the beautifully bruised ‘Honey Magnolia’ and the catchy campfire singalong, ‘Smoke’.

‘Rosemary’ probably relies a little too heavily on Springsteen for inspiration, but in the main, it seems Fallon has broadened out his palette of influences here, calling to mind the likes of Ryan Adams and even Jeff Tweedy on occasion. Like his heroes, Fallon
has a way with a couplet that just cuts through all the noise. Like on The Beatles-go-Americana of ‘Among Other Foolish Things’, where he asserts, “You still remind me of Marianne Faithfull looking like a picture taken out of the sixties”, or the bittersweet
‘Steve McQueen’ (“This life is only chains, nothing like the colours in my dreams”).

Combining the quality of Fallon’s songwriting with Walker’s warm, down home production is a master stroke. This is easily up there with the finest work of the singer’s career.

Key Track: ‘Among Other Foolish Things’

Out March 11 on Island

7/10