I'm talking about this:
Against me! are a band that I like (mild understatement). Their first full-length was titled "Reinventing Axl Rose". It was good. In fact, it was one of the best albums I ever paid money for. Real American dollars, mind you. There was something about it that gave me hope, that continues to give hope. The album recognized that hope is often against what I like to term 'real odds', but there was hope in that album. The next album was also good. Also one of the best albums I've ever paid money for. It was called "As the eternal cowboy".
This is to say nothing for their live shows, which are worthy of their own posts. I'm grateful for them.
This album makes me feel funny. It's very honest. It's probably their best album. There is little hope inside it. I like hope. I find enough reasons not to be hopeful on a daily basis. I don't need my music to further depress me. "Reinventing Axl Rose" made me want to struggle, to continue the good fight.
There was a line on that first album from "I still love you Julie" where Tom (the singer type) screamed that he prayed 'this scam could still save us all'. I believe he was referring to the process of writing, recording, and playing music in front of a live audience. At some point, I guess the band decided the scam really couldn't save us all. On the title track, they pined for a band who would 'play loud and hard every night, that doesn't care how many people are counted at the door, that would travel one million miles and ask for nothing for a plate of food a place to rest." I pined for that band too, and I found them in Against me!
On the current album, several songs discuss their disgust with the music industry, drug and alcohol problems well out of control, venereal disease (what, like it doesn't exist?), and self-loathing. And compared with the title track from the first album, today's Against me! are filled with disgust at the prospect of assigning percentages to all the hands that push their music out in the world, and sound ashamed at the bastardized product their hope became. Where their had been solidarity with the audience, now they're not sure if punks don't take music and the music scene a little too seriously.
In other words, a real upbeat number!
The music is solid. It's slow, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I just got the same feeling listening to this album that I did after I saw Requiem for a Dream--it was disturbing. Well made, a good cast, etc. but disturbing. I didn't want to watch it again. I don't know how much I'm going to want to keep listening to "Searching for a former clarity", but that's different from it being a good album.
wait. Did the New York Times, really review Against me!?
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