Review:

on 2006-10-25 AndyFromJersey Said:

In my junior year of high school, as part of an honors English course, I was given a dark photocopy of Psalm 137. “O! Jerusalem!” mourned the author a few millennia ago in reference to the Babylonian‘s conquest of the Jews, “If I forget thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth and my right hand forget her cunning.” At the time, the awe I felt at this verse (who knew the Bible was good literature?) was earthshaking. Even in a poem this ancient, the courage of a suffering people, in the face of recent defeat, is overwhelming. And maybe you wouldn’t necessarily connect this feeling to a seminal punk band, but maybe you wouldn’t necessarily have known about Bad Religion.
The Empire Strikes First is the name of Bad Religion’s latest tour de force. Speaking from the perspective of a fan of the band and punk rock in general, one realizes after maybe five seconds of listening to this album’s first track (a skull crushing opener called “Sinister Rouge”) that it is not going to be your run of the mill half hour punk record. Both an interesting departure and faithful homage to Bad Religion’s back catalogue, the band carries on their tradition of close three part harmonies, majestically heralding guitar riffs, and as usual for Bad Religion, chooses the political side of punk, but with an interestingly specific focus: the war in Iraq. “Tell me what we’re fighting for; I don’t remember anymore” implores vocalist and songwriter Greg Graffin in Empire’s fourth track, “Atheist Peace,” and the bitterness only gains strength from there.
At this point, the album switches from a trio of two minute standard punk tunes to a series of epic showstoppers, including the romantically ominous “All There Is” and the beautifully sarcastic, bittersweet single about social decay “Los Angeles is Burning.” If Kurt Vonnegut had been in a rock band instead of a novelist, these songs would form his Slaughter House- Five.
And how exactly is this different from the past Bad Religion we all know and love? That’s a fair question. The prophet-of-doom guitar solos are still very much present, and thankfully Mr. Graffin still throws around multi-syllabic vocabulary like an SAT proctor training to be a cage fighter. However, the album certainly has a more polished, professional sound, and a quick review of the liner notes will show that the band’s roster is now up to six members with the addition of a third guitarist. The general mood of The Empire Strikes First is that of a bearded Socrates rather than a loose confederation of disillusioned intellectuals raised in California. The distinction is somewhat difficult to make, but it’s the difference between a child screaming “Why?” and a solemn commentator who already knows how the story is going to end, replying “Because it must be so.”
Translated into musical terms, this may mean that Bad Religion has somehow become less punk to certain sneering, flannel bedecked teenagers. Songs that are essentially more “hard rock” oriented or radio friendly may well disappoint the legions of purists, but there’s enough of that (ahem) old time Bad Religion sound leftover to prove that these guys aren’t changing or selling out, they’re just getting older and more experienced--as if a career of twenty plus years doesn’t already do all the talking for them.
Finally, the album finishes with “Live Again (The Fall of Man),” which could just as easily find a place on older albums like Against The Grain. It serves to neatly wrap up what turns out to be a thoughtfully constructed ode to the horrors of wartime culture, promising that all is not lost, and that the listener can do better than the misdeeds of the society they live in. “Lives again! Live again! Would you give it all up to live again? Temptation, revelation, you decide” advises Greg Graffin in the grand finale of a new generation’s underdog social gospel, and hopefully we can find the courage to answer his call.
Rating: 9/10