This week, Long Island rockers Brand New released "Mene," their first new song since before the turn of the decade, and a song that could very well one day end up on this list. Brand New have had one of the more interesting career trajectories in modern rock, starting as a drop in the ocean of pop-punk bands in the early '00's before blossoming into proficient post-hardcore leaders with 2006's The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me and, later, Daisy. The band has always claimed a large group of rabid followers, and recently have been shown a good deal of retrospective critical acclaim across the indie blogosphere. As someone who is a pretty big fan of the band (especially their later work), I'm very excited at the increasingly likely prospect of a new record, and figure now would be a good time to look back at the group's catalogue and attempt to pick out their ten best singles. While this list is dominated by tracks from the band's two latter albums, all of Brand New's music is worth checking out.
10. "Daisy" - Daisy (2009)
Kicking off our countdown is the self-titled track from the band's last full-length LP. Opening with an unsettling male voice leading some sort of choir shortly followed by an eerie soundbite of a small child speaking, "Daisy" is an atmospheric track about failure and inadequacy. Singer Jesse Lacey opens up the first verse by proclaiming, "I'm a mountain that has been moved/I'm a river that is all dried up," going on to compare himself to several other objects that have failed to serve their purpose. The child's dialogue splits the two verses, the second of which takes on a decidedly darker feel thanks to a low bass grumble and death-march drum pattern. "Daisy," like its eponymous album as a whole, is a slow-burner, but that doesn't make the flame any dimmer.
