It’s a relief to hear a band that’s obviously true to their roots of ’80s-style hardcore try to interject their own twist to that style, but it just doesn’t quite work for me.
A lot of repetition, bright bass tones, and vocal lines that follow the guitar like fuckin’ “Iron Man.” In other words, typical second stage Warped Tour fair.
Political punk rock with samples, breakbeats, frantic paces, and both live and synthesized guitars. Lots of whoa-whoa’s, but also plenty of Chemical Brothers.
The eight new songs runing down the usual litany of complaints: The military is too violent, the government is too repressive, some people are too homophobic.
Anti-Flag singer Justin Sane has listened to his fair share of Billy Bragg and decided to try his hand at folk, just a semi-distorted guitar and his voice.
Venomous ska-punk infused with metal and a little low-cal SoCal. That’s harmony minus sugar. Fierce shit that lazy folk will compare to Op Ivy and Rancid.
Good music can justify a lot of nonsense. Pipedown, on the other hand, sound like an uncomfortable cross between lightweight “punk” and lightweight “hardcore.”
Anti-Flag are energetic punks with their hearts in the right place, and they put on a great live show, as long as you ignore the stage banter between songs.