I haven’t listened with incredulity to an album for quite a while. Rise Against‘s fifth studio album completes a remarkable turnaround for a band who produced the seminal Revolutions Per Minute. Quite simply, I haven’t heard someone rape their own sound quite so much since Against Me! decided to forget the first five years of their existence ever happened.
Rise Against first appeared above the parapet of the mainstream musical consciousness thanks to a catchy but veritably uncompromising sound which kicked and crunched its way through tracks which you didn’t feel ashamed to scream along to. If I’m ever caught singing along to this album then I will have fully earned the slap which should inevitably come my way.
It’s at about this point that I feel compelled to write about a poor release’s redeeming features. Unfortunately, they’re so few and far between that it seems almost pointless. ‘Whereabouts Unknown‘ ‘Long Forgotten Sons’ and ‘Kotov Syndrome’ attempt to nod their collective heads in the direction of old, but it’s like they feel almost embarrassed to do so. And well they might.
I don’t know if it comes from spending so much time on tour with Anti-Flag, but some of these songs are near identical in structure, and virtually identical in terms of production. This has been compressed and tuned to within an inch of its Pro Tools-sponsored life – an utterly stupid move when you consider the past appeal of the band we used to know as Rise Against.
Lastly, I can’t finish this without mentioning ‘Hero of War’. Shit me, if that’s not the worst song I’ve heard all year. ‘Swing Life Away’ hinted at it, ‘Roadside’ threatened such an unspeakable atrocity, and here we have the prophecy delivered. “Tomy’s My First Protest Song”, as someone on our forums aptly described it.
This is bloodcurdingly bland and safe. So much so that I’m outrageously offended by something it ought not to be possible to be offended by; a fitting paradox for a band who now boast an output of such varying quality.