Released: March 29, 2005
Gasoline talks like a man who has already won every argument, but the music keeps exposing how badly it has rattled him. That contradiction gives Theory of a Deadman’s second album its central question: how much of the tough-guy pose survives once the hurt underneath becomes audible?
Released in 2005, Gasoline puts the band’s blunt traits right up front. Howard Benson’s production gives Tyler Connolly and Dave Brenner’s guitars a thick, polished grind, while Chris Lord-Alge’s mix pushes the choruses wide without burying Dean Back’s bass. “Hating Hollywood” builds its chunky opening figure into a dense wall of guitars. “No Way Out” moves differently, with a wah-soaked lead curling around the vocal and Back’s bass working beneath the main riff. The drums stay firm and uncluttered, with the cymbals rising as the choruses open.
“No Surprise” sums up the album’s personality in under four minutes. The verses turn a breakup into a lost weekend, moving with an easy barroom bounce before Connolly makes the woman the chorus’s misogynistic punch line. That mixture of self-pity, humor, and hostility runs through much of Gasoline. “Me & My Girl” adds a countrified twang to its verses before the distorted guitars crowd back in. “Better Off” reduces emotional retreat to a compact riff and a chorus full of repeated denial. Connolly says he has finished caring, but the strain in his rasp gives him away.
The gap between what Connolly says and how he sings becomes the album’s real subject. The lyrics keep turning rejection into freedom, while the melodies climb and crack around the parts that still hurt. He can sell a sneer, but longing brings more detail out of his voice. On “No Surprise” and “Better Off,” the verses remain narrow and dry. When the choruses spread out, the words sound less certain than they did a few seconds earlier.
“Santa Monica” is the clearest example. Its acoustic tone, ringing harmonics, and clean kick drum leave space around Connolly’s voice, while the chromatic movement in the bridge briefly unsettles the familiar chord cycle. Daniel Adair plays drums here, setting a measured pulse beneath the acoustic guitar. The image of a bed filled with gasoline supplied the album title, but the song stays with the abandoned narrator reading the evidence of her departure. The woman at the other end becomes a specific absence. For four minutes, she escapes the generic cheater role found elsewhere on the record.
The softer songs keep pulling at the same crack. “Since You’ve Been Gone” brings in violin, viola, and cello, letting the strings answer the vocal without smothering it. Immediately afterward, “Hell Just Ain’t the Same” cuts everything down to a 65-second blues sketch. “In the Middle” closes with acoustic guitars and strings, imagining the whole world gone so the couple must decide whether they still belong together. By that point, every breakup can no longer be laughed off or blamed on someone else.
Some of the writing has aged badly because women are too often reduced to cheats, nags, or targets. The music repeatedly reveals the cost of that stance. So how much of the tough-guy pose survives? Very little. Connolly is more revealing when he sounds lonely than when he sounds cruel. The space around “Santa Monica,” the strings on “Since You’ve Been Gone,” and the catch in his longer notes strip away the jokes and blame. He has not moved on. Gasoline’s swagger is what he uses to avoid admitting it until the music says it for him.
Written by Rob Joncas for DeadNoteMedia.
Artist information and music courtesy of the band.
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