Customer Reviews

New Wave

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

True, many long-time Against Me! fans will probably miss the bands folk-punk roots. This is not a folk-punk album. It is a great album none the less. As a long time fan, I can forgive Tom and Co. for not wanting to release the same record over and over again.

Electric-guitar driven, three chord punk music at its best. I love the new sound and everything Butch Vig has done on this record.

Against Me!, like others before them, have grown and moved forward with their music. If your own taste has not moved in the same directions as theirs, so be it. But is it fair to demand that the band remains at the same place with you?

And please, people... Can we all put the move to Sire behind us already? What about just keeping it about the music?

"Are you restless like me?" barks lead singer Tom Gabel on Against Me!'s terrific "New Wave." If maybe you are, then this pounding rock record will make you jump up and shake off some dirt. "New Wave" opens the album by delivering clean and crisp rock and roll in a short, sharp blast (courtesy of producer Butch Vig), barking out anthemic lyrics like it's 1978 and they've just heard of The Clash or even Bad Religion for the first time. From there, the heat never lets up. While this may not be the political firebrand some punk rockers of that era would have been, there is still enough grousing in the songs to make you feel the band gives a toss.

That kind of frustrated fury underscores "White People for Peace," where a useless and stupid war riles up the populous. So how does the mob respond? "Protest songs in response to military aggression," howls the lyric, "but the battle raged on." It is hard to tell if Against Me! would prefer more protest or they are disillusioned with the fact that the guitars can't block the bullets. (My guess would be a little of each.)

After that, a lot of "New Wave" runs on the world of rocking. Both "Up the Cuts" and "Stop!" argue that you can be a great band if you stay true to yourself, and (in "Stop!") that success is the best revenge. "Piss and Vinegar" and the title song takes mainstream radio/tv to task for being bland purveyors of nothing in particular. Expanding on that theme, the catchy shout-along "Americans Abroad" looks depressingly at the band's world tour and discovering "everywhere that we go Coca-Cola's already been."

If you're looking for troubled relationships, they are here as well. Tegan (of Tegan and Sara) duets on "Bourne on the FM Waves of the Heart" and more base urges grunt from "Animal." There's also a lament for an aging junkie club-girl in "Thrash Unreal." And it all clocks in at 33 minutes. Thing is, "New Wave" sounds so loud, so insistent and so vital, that I have just kept hitting repeat every time I slip it in my CD player. Which has been a lot, lately. Against Me! have already found their way onto my list for one of the best of 2007.

This is one of those CDs that gets better every time you listen to it - you can listen to the whole thing straight through because each song is solid. "Thrash Unreal" sounds almost like pop at the first listen, but like the other songs the underlying meaning of the song is a bit more cynical.

The product itself is in fantastic condition. It came with a swanky CD, as well. Big bonus for myself. The record was also green; being my first record, it was a nice surprise. Against Me! Sounds even better on vinyl.

I love this CD...I bought it for my husband but I love it too..it's full of fast moving in your face music..I recently saw this band live. I had never heard of them before but I enjoyed the music.

I'll keep this one short. This is a life-changing album. Passionate, melodic, intoxicating like Rancid, Dropkick Murphys, Face to Face, Gogol Bordello and Flogging Molly at their best. White People for Peace has got to be my favorite song in the past five years and "Stop" deserves to be a number one hit - perhaps it will be this summer's "Crazy." The messages this album delivers have never been more relevant - and the songs grab onto you and never let go. To all the haters - you need to get a life. What if someone told you to never leave your entry level job? Against Me! gets better with every album - I look forward to every note they ever unleash.

At first listen, New Wave is certainly not the best Against Me! has put out so far, but given a chance it definitely can stand up with their other albums.

The problem for most fans is that the band brings with it a nearly tangible energy, most easily felt at one of their live shows. If you haven't had the opportunity to see this band play live, I highly recommend it. There is something absolutely electric at their concerts, a feeling that remains consistent at each of the dozen or so shows I've been to personally.

A large part of that feeling is just the raw power and energy that they bring to the stage, and when that hits the crowd it seems to travel back and forth between the fans and the band, constantly feeding off each other.

Unfortunately, New Wave lacks some of that raw power that fans have come to expect. The effect is much the same as it is for anyone who is lucky enough to have heard the songs from "The Stolen Demo" and then heard versions of those songs on "Still Searching for a Former Clarity", the substance is there, but in the back of your mind you know its just missing something. Any of you who were left wanting from "Clarity" should desperately try to find "The Stolen Demo", without it Clarity is half the album it should have been.

Additionally, some may feel that New Wave is a little overproduced and clean. In my opinion the best mix of studio with Against Me!'s natural energy was on "As the Eternal Cowboy", although I'm sure thats debatable among fans.

In any case, New Wave still has a lot to it, music and lyrics are still good. I don't know anyone who listens to Against Me! that doesn't rank them in their top 3 of all time favorites, but fans should not be afraid for their favorite band to sound a little different and not just put out the same recycled stuff over and over again.

New Wave is a step up from Former Clarity (although that may only be because the Stolen Demo songs/versions of songs didn't make it onto the album), and in any case it is still a good album and well worth your hard earned American dollars.

Don't be confused by the fact that they will always be better live, that's a good thing. Just buy it and enjoy it, consider it a good summer album with a few songs you will enjoy hearing at their next show.

I usually judge a CD on it's greatness by how long it takes for it to sink it's teeth into me. I've thought some CD's were horrible and they eventually grew on me but weren't spectacular. I've listened to some that grabbed me right away and didn't let go. "New Wave" is one of those CD's.

I put this CD into my car and was able to listen to about 2 minutes of it before I had to go into work. Later on in the day, I was humming the song "New Wave" and I had not even heard the whole song yet! Every song on this CD is extremely catchy. It seems to be a little more straight forward punk rock than earlier material, but these songs blow away anything being played on the radio right now.

This has nothing to do with being on a major label in my opinion. Music is either good or bad. I could care less who is on a major or independent as long as they stay true to themselves and the music and from what I hear, Against Me! has made the best 'punk rock' CD of the year thus far.

Why you'd want to hear a band remake one of their older albums is beyond me. Go listen to those albums if that's what you want to hear. I'd rather hear a band grow and mature and change things up a bit. A song like "Thrash Unreal" is overly poppy with a serious subject manner and "The Ocean" is like some trippy Pink Floyd jam.

Forget all the past CD's and what you thought this CD was going to/supposed to sound like and enjoy!

No review of Against Me! is complete without mentioning the (formerly?) anarchist/communist band's veteran fanbase. Chants of "sellout" began with Against Me!'s move to independent label Fat Wreck Chords and only intensified when they moved to Sire Records, a major label.

To the dismay of many longtime fans, New Wave all but abandons the folk-punk sound that defined Against Me!'s first couple albums. Some songs, most noticeably "Thrash Unreal," have moments reminiscent of earlier songs, but for the most part the only clues that this album is indeed by Against Me! are Tom's gruff voice and the anti-authoritarian lyrics. Ironically many of the same phrases with which Against Me! indicts the music industry have been thrown at the band by jilted fans.

So if the album is not traditional Against Me! then what is it? It an above-average pop-rock album with relatively thought-provoking lyrics with some outstanding tracks (the aforementioned "Thrash Unreal," "Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart", "Piss and Vinegar") and one Godawful track ("Stop"). I have a feeling this one will either grow on me and become one of my favorite albums or else be permanently banished from my cd player by next month.

"It does seem tempting to write on Against Me!'s place in the punk scene (if there is one) and the nature of independent versus major labels, the "punk ghetto," and a whole heft of other topics. The one thing that all of these topics -- which are sure to be covered here, there and elsewhere -- miss the real point, which is the music." (Justin Punknews.org)
During the first half of the album songs including "White People for Peace" and "New Wave" roar out of the speakers with intensity, but through the course of the material tends to drag with too many repeated choruses. "Thrash Unreal" starts as a real Gem with great potential, but once again, the chorus starts with bbbomp bbbomp, which sounds like filler from the 50's. Honestly, I have tried hard to like this release, but in the back of my mind I feel this record is not every thing it should be. I can understand a band wants to experiment and change, which is something Against Me! has done on every release, but songs such as "Animal" and "Stop!" sound like bad Euro Pop with disco beats, just poorly written material. That is not to say that the whole second half of the album is horrible, "Americans Abroad" is well written tune depicting America's Globalization overseas, along with the mishaps of being a misunderstood tourist, which I can vouch for, since it became an anthem for my own Euro trip last spring. However, this song was released almost a year ago under the live album of the same name. The last song "The Ocean" is one of the better experimental songs sounding closer to Modest Mouse with Tom Gabel shouting, "I wish I was born a Woman".
What can I say about Against Me. I'm 27, I have not been this excited about a band since I was 14. Seeing the band four times and having the chance to meet the lads with my wife behind a club in Reno are things I will remember well into my old age. Perhaps these occurrences raised my hopes way too high.
Truthfully, I believe Against Me! has the potential to be the biggest band in the world and I hoped that "New Wave" was going shatter the Emo pop mold, but currently I have considerable doubts. The only thing I can hope for is this record to grow on me, who knows, maybe this time next year I will be rewriting this review, but I have my doubts.