Review: Appeal To Reason, Rise Against

DISCLAIMER: I am an unrepentant RA fanboy. They are, IMHBCO, the rightful successors to the Bad Religion throne: a powerful progressive political stance and a sound that is at once old-school and modern. But also, fanboy checking in: they could duet with Britney Spears and I’d be “OMG SO INNOVATIVE”. So bear that in mind.

The short and sweet: powerful, but a little erratic: I assume it’s a growing maturity on the part of the band to make songs “bigger” without the requisite pressure to keep things at 140bpm for the lunkheads to circle-pit to.

A BRIEF DIGRESSION INTO THE CHRIS CORNELL SCALE OF VOCAL NARCISSISM
I used to be in this band, right, and the lead singer was undeniably talented; his model of singing was Chris Cornell (of Soundgarden/Audioslave). Which is fine; I don’t like either of those bands but I have a hard time saying Cornell himself is lacking in vocal ability.

Anyway, in said band, we developed what is now the Chris Cornell Scale of Vocal Narcissism. The premise is, basically, that once he realized he was a powerful singer, he was allowed to write songs that have no meaning at all. It’s simply 3 and a half minutes of, “HAI GUISE I CAN SING FANTASTIC WANNA HEAR?”.

This is a 1.0 on the Scale. The backing musicians are effectively irrelevant: just get something good back there, and you’re good to go.

BUT BACK TO THE POINT
My main criticism of this record is that it rises (HA!HA!) to the highest CCSoVN score to date. I’d estimate they’re above 0.5, maybe pushing 0.6.

The songs are really tight; but I feel like the addition of Zach Blair (Only Crime/GWAR) should have made things “bigger” but more than once we have a mental/sonic image of Tim making the “thumbs up” gesture at the guy running the mic feed.

Eg, the vocals are WAY to prominent in ‘The Dirt Whispered’, such that in the outro the guitars are muddy and indistinct against the prominent vocal harmony; ‘Entertainment’ is lyrically perfect but it’s like the propulsive riff is never allowed to “complete” effectively, you start to pump your fist in the air and it’s slapped down by the band.

All that said, lyrically it’s easily their best album to date. Also I might change my judgement after obtaining and listening to a CD copy (mine is, of course, off iTunes), as it’s possible it’s a shitty rip and the CD version is better. And the first 3 tracks are easily the best ‘modern’ punk tracks to come out of a major label aimed at the mass market.