Anti Flag's debut major label release
I'd love to start off this review bumming the band on all their success in creating politically aware music and able to convey their left wing ideas to the world but when they're playing shows and dragging out cliché political slogans such as 'fuck Bush yack yack yack' then things become a bit repetitive and tiring. Now with the horrendous move from premier indie punk label Fat Wreck to ugly major Columbia Records, a lot of fans believed Anti-Flag to have ditched everything they protested for, in exchange for 'the money and the fame.' Many people were far too scared of the new album and what attitude their new label would bring out of them.
I've never been a big fan of Anti-Flag's older records and never particularly enjoyed listening to Justin Sane singing. But unlike all their other records, it was compulsive for me to sit down and listen to this record in its entirety and to be fair, I was quite surprised (and even refreshed) by it's content.
Right I really really hate ska punk, with some exceptions rarely can a ska band last 5 minutes with me. But with Anti Flag's 'The Press Corpse' it has the perfect mix of ska punk. The bass line sounds like something out of Farse and the tempo can even get me shaking my hips. Bloody great song. Something that I'm quite saddened (yet impressed) about is how Anti-Flag have become sounding more like Red Lights Flash than ever before. Songs such as 'The Project For the New American Century' still sound like Anti-Flag but I could swear for at least five seconds of that song, I was listening to the Austrian quartet.
It seems the band have written this record with a number of various syncopations in mind. One of my favourite songs is 'This Is the End.' With it's military drum rolls and brief intermissions. It's interesting how this band has produced this album almost as if it's been made for a major label company. I think of this when considering the small things such as 'One Trillion Dollars', which has the coin flicking in the background.
Similarly to the new Against Me! Album, there's a massive change in direction for the band musically but unlike the new Against Me! Album, the politics are still at the forefront of the band's music.
So have Anti-Flag sold-out with this new album? I might be a vegetarian and passed my AS level politics last year but that makes me no professional in being able to make such a judgement on a band I've not been a fan of since their beginning. I guess those anarchists will certainly be listening in discontent whereas those not as politically challenged may be embracing the record with open arms. But musically it's the best thing (in my opinion) the band has recorded. It may not be no longer an 'up the punx' deluxe super group but they're certainly far from dead.