Neil Young famously sang “it’s better to burn out than to fade away.”  So it was for the band Gratitude, who shone like a shooting star and burnt up nearly as quick.  Gratitude was in many ways a grand experiment — a band conceived with arena aspirations that readily took to major-label backing but retained the uncompromising attitude and ethics of DIY punk scrappers — perhaps one that was bound to fail from the start. Though they came and went in the blink of an eye, in that brief moment in between, Gratitude took one glorious grab for the brass ring.  That it slipped through their hands seems almost inconsequential now, as the album they left behind remains as majestic and compelling today as it felt the day it was unleashed on the world.

Gratitude began as a project of guitarist Mark Weinberg (of alt-rock major label casualties Crumb) and hit its stride with the addition of vocalist Jonah Matranga (late of post-hardcore progenitors Far, then recording solo as onelinedrawing and as leader of its beefed-up full band cousin New End Original.)  Rounded out by second guitarist Jeremy Tappero, bassist Bob Lindsey and drummer Thomas Becker, the band quickly signed with Atlantic records and took to the studio to record their debut.

And so from the ashes of Crumb and New End Original, Gratitude rose like a phoenix, all fiery brilliance and raging heart, with a self-titled album of grandly anthemic rock, rife with massive choruses and shimmering hooks, lyrics that honed in on the universal but remained deeply personal, and a sensitivity rarely seen from those swinging for the rafters.  An album that was unafraid to love aggressively, Gratitude didn’t just wear its heart on its sleeve, it waved that heart like a flag leading the charge into spiritual battle.

It’s an emotional forthrightness that’s apparent from the opening seconds of the album’s first track “Drive Away,” with Matranga imploring “If you ever see her, lying hurt / don’t just stare! / Please get up, get up, get up, / get up and help her!” — a rallying cry, a call to action, laced over a staccato guitar pulse that explodes into a massive singalong chorus.  It’s a call on the inward to rescue the outward, themes he hits in his lyrics again and again.  Of course, it’s easy to want to save the world; the hard part is figuring out how.  On “All In A Row” Matranga pleads to the deity with desperation, “take a look at these scars, / just take a look at us starving. / God, get us back to the garden!” Frequently, he finds his answer in a renunciation of possessions, both material (“I’ve built up this collection of / souvenirs from years of missed connections / I’m giving it all away”) and emotional ( “All our hopes / all our fears / letting go is love”).  It’s a Buddhistic thread that runs straight through to the album’s final two cuts, tacit recognitions that the wheel of samsara inevitably turns (“we run away / it’s never done / all of the joy and pain / dream again”), and that the true battle is in ceasing to despair and embracing life for what it is.  As he sings on closing number “Begin Again,” “All will breathe / All will see  / Oh, all will begin again / And it hurts / Oh, so really understand.”

The real magic of Gratitude, though, is in pairing this lyrical richness with musical heft, something the band manages with aplomb.  “Greatest Wonder,” a beautifully tender rumination on love and loss and the place where both intertwine, glides across Weinberg’s ringing guitar notes before exploding into a massive power-ballad chorus full of brilliant crunch.  It’s all straight from the U2 playbook, and Gratitude manage to execute flawlessly.  Weinberg proves incredibly versatile — witness the move  from chug-chug verses to massive chorus riffery to blazing outro solo in the span of less than three minutes on “This Is The Part.”  In the end though, Gratitude is an album designed to go big at every opportunity, and there’s something alchemical in the way Weinberg and Matranga team up for massive chorus after massive chorus, every refrain a hook sunk deep.

On “Last,” Matranga sings “And we know that it won’t last / but we force it and force it and / and the time just proves too much.” Gratitude seemed to be falling apart from the moment they formed, with drummer Becker jumping ship mid-recording session and co-leader Weinberg departing mere months into the album’s touring cycle.  In November of 2005, less then nine months after their first and only album’s release, Gratitude officially disbanded. Today, Jonah Matranga is splitting time between recording under his own name and fronting a reunited Far, while Tappero, Lindsey and Becker’s replacement David Jarnstrom have regrouped as the band Attention.  Both factions have released excellent work of their own since, and their recordings are well worth seeking out.  But for one short splendid moment, Gratitude were the best band on the planet.

*This review was composed by Jesse Richman