It is a good time for the Gaslight Anthem to return to us, and to return to us as if they were barely ever gone. I will tell anyone who will listen (which, by my count, is far too many people) that time feels especially steeped in illusions of pace. The days seem slow, but the months speed by. It is sometimes hard to pull apart the distance between my present self, and the younger self, who once drove through the night to get to Jersey just in time to stand in line for tickets to a Gaslight Anthem show, and I’m not necessarily sure I’d absolutely need to pull the two apart if not for the realities of age, of time, of grief. It is good to hear a band that isn’t afraid to grow older. Maybe even better to have a band who, in their songs, seem somewhat joyfully bewildered by the dilemma of ongoing survival. Which, to be clear, is a bewildering one. More than that, it all feels comfortable and familiar. Like you’ve been away from home for a long time, and you’ve come back to not just one familiar face, but a whole choir of them. All of them want to tell you the good word of what has transpired since you’ve been away from each other. Someone’s a little older. Someone fell in love, and then out of love, but wouldn’t you know it, they fell in love again. Someone died, but more of us are still here. This album feels like ten different homecomings in one. All of them delivering the best news. -Hanif Abdurraqib