Brand New
– Science Fiction
It starts with a whisper—literally a therapist’s tape recorder—and unfolds like a fever dream you can’t quite shake. Science Fiction isn’t just Brand New’s swan song, it’s a slow-motion implosion set to minor chords and unrelenting self-examination. No cheap theatrics, no radio bait. Just a band staring down the barrel of its own legacy and deciding to burn it all with grace.
Best of…
Everything here feels weathered, splintered, and real. The guitars hum like distant power lines, the drums barely raise their voice, and Jesse Lacey sings like someone trying not to wake the neighbors—or his past. The production (Mike Sapone again, thank god) is drenched in mood, but never smothered. The songs meander like broken memories, stitched together with static and doubt.
What Science Fiction does best is refuse easy comfort. It’s quiet but never calm. Every song feels like it’s waiting to unravel. And when it hits—those sharp, sudden crescendos, those moments of naked lyrical honesty—it’s like the floor dropping out from under you. Brand New didn’t write a conclusion here. They left an open wound.
Choice Tracks
Lit Me Up
The album’s ghostly opener crawls into your bones before you know what’s happening. Built on a slow pulse and deadpan dread, it sets the emotional tone like a funeral bell.
Can’t Get It Out
One of the few moments that almost rocks in a conventional sense. Lacey channels frustration into melody, delivering a chorus that feels both anthemic and exhausted.
137
This is where the apocalypse gets personal. Fingerpicked guitars build into one of the record’s heaviest moments, both musically and lyrically. The nuclear metaphor isn’t subtle, but it doesn’t need to be.
Out of Mana
Gritty and urgent, this track throws back to their earlier days without breaking the album’s haunted tone. A rare moment where the band sounds like it’s trying to outrun something.
Batter Up
The closer stretches past eight minutes, and every second feels necessary. It drifts like an old radio signal fading into night, all unresolved chords and final gasps.
Science Fiction is Brand New’s most haunted, vulnerable, and sonically rich album. It lingers in the dark, whispering truths no one asked to hear, and leaves without a bow. A ghost of a goodbye, delivered in static and slow-burning fire.