“Best new band of 2002” I wrote when I reviewed the previous album “Why We Fight” of this Seattle, Washington band. That was and still is my honest opinion. At the end of that review I also wrote: “I just hope they can hold on to the tightness in these songs in future releases, because I've got the impression that a lot of these well-skilled bands tend to head for a more artistic (read less catchy) approach.” Yeah sure, you can guess what happened...

The praising words didn’t go by unnoticed for both label and band; since then I have had some nice conversations with people in and behind Gatsbys American Dream. You could say I got somewhat involved in this band and of course that’s never a good basis for writing an objective review. I do confess however that my first impression of these new songs wasn’t the instantanious love that I experienced with the previous effort. The complex structure and the lack of classic punkmelodicy and riffy guitars in most of these compositions are certainly the main motives for this. Furthermore it’s always hard to fulfill high expectations that one has after such a smashing album. On the other hand I knew right from the start that this album was a confirmation of the amazing artistic capacity this band has, and it was immediately clear that this was going to be a “grower”. Now I usually hear this term used for albums that are slower and less gritty, and normally I’d ignore an album like that, because I’m not the big fan of the emotional, dragging songs that are more than 4 minutes long. But that’s not what it’s about here: only 2 of them are over 3 minutes long. And that’s one of the reasons why they kept my attention, although the entire album could be labeled as a concept-album with songs that fit together like pieces of a puzzle. I received an unmastered version of this album something like 2 months ago now, and must have listened to it something like a 100 times by now. I promise you… the thing gets better with every new turn. Where I first didn’t hear eagerness in these songs, it is now replaced with a feeling that these powerbursts, although subtle and not abundantly present, provoke an amazing and original contrast with the constantly manoeuvering guitars. The impression that there was lack of melodicy (damn, it seems like there's not even any choruses in here) made room for a feeling that underneath this seemingly too complicated build-up there’s often hiding a mindsticking recognizable gathering of tunes. I’m not playing any instruments myself, but how in hell does someone write a song that is getting better after every next listen? How can you know this song is any good while you’re writing it then? I suppose it’s therefore that we categorize music under “art” and that’s why I’m not an artist myself.

The concept of this album is based on the Georges Orwell novel “Animal Farm”, which happens to be a book we had to read for our English courses when I was 18 or something. It’s about dealing with yourself before you deal with the world, if I recall well. Now there’s something that I’m a bit struggling with when it comes to GAD: their lyrics are reading like poetry and maybe it’s because English is not my mother language, but I really have difficulties to see the messages in these songs. They read as half sentences and are as metaphoric as that novel is. I wonder if I’m just stupid or if this was done on purpose.

Summarizing, I’d say “Ribbons and Sugar” indeed is a step towards the sound I warned these guys not to evolve to. And maybe I still love their first album more. But I’m sure every music fan that demands more than the next generic punkalbum will agree with me that this album is so much more mature and skilfully executed than their first. Add to this a sublime production of James Paul Wisner (Further Seems Forever, Dashboard Confessional), and in this time where emotional shit is all about girls and boys, this album takes you to another level where true emotions are outed in music that is not only controlling, artistic and quite difficult to access, but at the same time mindsticking, fun to listen to and overwhelmingly beautiful without entirely losing touch with the catchiness that their previous stuff carried. Just give it a few spins and you’ll agree with me that this is a release that should be in everyone’s collection and could be a step further towards global recognition for this band. My absolute favorites on the album are “We’re Not Orphans” (oh, these nice dual vocals again), “Epilogue” (amazingly woven guitarplay that goes all directions except for the one you’d expect it to go) and “Recondition, Reprogram, Reactivate” (pure magic in gathering emotion and catchiness). Get this, damned!