Click to listen to The Horrible Crowes' album 'Elsie'

On this side project, Gaslight Anthem frontman Brian Fallon trades his main band's Springsteenian punk for pianos and ballad choruses - moving up the East Coast corridor not far from Billy Joel country. Fallon drops his trademark cheap-scotch growl to a whisper, singing about loneliness ("Cherry Blossoms") and missed opportunities ("Blood Loss"). The songs are more subdued, but he doesn't skimp on conviction, often playing the patron saint of hard-luck cases (including his own). And while this is sometimes just a softfocus version of Gaslight's bruised romanticism, his weathered tenderness makes it stick. "Did you say you were afraid of dying?/I ain't lived a single day without you," he sings on "I Believe Jesus Brought Us Together." Call it corny - in his broken timbre, it's sad-sack gospel.

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“Youth Knows No Pain”

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”