Bad Religion: True North

BAD RELIGION: TRUE NORTH (2013)

1) True North; 2) Past Is Dead; 3) Robin Hood In Reverse; 4) Land Of Endless Greed; 5) Fuck You; 6) Dharma And The Bomb; 7) Hello Cruel World; 8) Vanity; 9) In Their Hearts Is Right; 10) Crisis Time; 11) Dept. Of False Hope; 12) Nothing To Dismay; 13) Popular Consensus; 14) My Head Is Full Of Ghosts; 15) The Island; 16) Changing Tide.

Each of us is at liberty to select the final stage when the ensuing judgement for a Bad Religion record is made of just one statement — «Verily, here is one more Bad Religion record that feels exactly the same way as any Bad Religion record». The majority of the not-giving-a-damn public would have been likely to go through that final stage circa the release of No Control or, at the latest, Generator. I did give a damn, and eventually succeeded in making it right to the finals, even if nary a single of those album descriptions could qualify as somewhat instructive.

With True North, I end up throwing in the towel. All right, so here is one more Bad Religion record that feels exactly the same way as any Bad Religion record. I only have to mention that the prominent tracks include Graffin's power-poppy ʽCrisis Timeʼ, with a colorful guitar solo, and Gurewitz's ʽDharma And The Bombʼ (unusually titled for a Bad Religion song, despite the usual antiwar sentiments of the lyrics). 

If these two paragraphs feel stylistically close to the beginning of the previous review, this is un­derstandable — reviews have to reflect their object, and what better way is there to reflect two near-identical objects than writing two near-identical reviews? Especially considering that, under standard conditions, Bad Religion are immune to most criticism. Here is how the average critic is expected to act: [A] Listen to the latest Bad Religion album; [B] Admire how fast, energetic, socially conscious, and deeply sincere all the songs are; [C] Write a review, beginning with "[N] years into their career, Bad Religion are still at it / going strong / rocking their heads off / tearing down walls / kicking establishment's ass / ... / ..."; [D] Forget every single thing about the album three seconds after the review has been submitted; [E] Go out there, have a life, meet your lifemate, have a kid, marry, settle down, wait 2-3 years; [F] Loop back to [A], repeat process. (Okay, so it doesn't really mean you should have a new kid every 2-3 years, but you do get the overall message, I hope).

It all works perfectly unless you make the haywire decision of reviewing all the Bad Religion albums at the same time — and just as I put a final stop to the pseudo-review of Dissent Of Man, lo and behold, here comes another Bad Religion. Fresh from the oven, sixteen songs in thirty-five minutes, half Graffin, half Gurewitz, a few slow ones, mostly fast ones, and each one is either predicting the apocalypse or hinting that it might already be here, we are all simply too dumb and zombified to notice. The most introspective that Graffin gets here is when he is trying to explain to us why he likes saying «fuck you» so much (ʽFuck Youʼ) — apparently, because "sometimes just a word is the most satisfying sound". Well, uh, yes, whatever. He probably wrote that one for his university colleagues or something.

But I have spent too much time with these guys to even pretend to feel bored about it — I know perfectly well what to expect, and I sort of... expect it. In fact, I'm probably going to feel a little something missing from my life once Bad Religion finally breaks up for good — except I suspect that they are going to outlive me eventually, because Greg Graffin ain't gonna stop until The Man is down and The People are totally enlightened, so get ready for repea­ting the Bad Religion ritual in a couple more years.

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Bad Religion: The Dissent Of Man

BAD RELIGION: THE DISSENT OF MAN (2010)

1) The Day That The Earth Stalled; 2) Only Rain; 3) The Resist Stance; 4) Won't Somebody; 5) The Devil In Stitches; 6) Pride And The Pallor; 7) Wrong Way Kids; 8) Meeting Of The Minds; 9) Someone To Believe; 10) Avalon; 11) Cyanide; 12) Turn Your Back On Me; 13) Ad Hominem; 14) Where The Fun Is; 15) I Won't Say Anything.

Everybody is free to choose the breaking point at which the next review of a Bad Religion album consists of a single phrase — «Yes, this is another Bad Religion album that sounds just like a Bad Religion album». Most of the non-obsessed people would probably experience that breaking point somewhere around Suffer or, at most, Against The Grain: obsessed as I am, I managed to struggle my way almost to the very end, although none of these reviews could probably count as particularly insightful.

With The Dissent Of Man, I finally wash my hands. Yes, this is another Bad Religion album that sounds just like a Bad Religion album. But I will still add that the current highlights are Graffin's power-poppy ʽSomeone To Believeʼ, with a colorful guitar solo, and Gurewitz's ʽTurn Your Back On Meʼ (unusually sentimental for a Bad Religion song, despite the usual crunchy backing).  

Actually, wait, there is something to add. Compared to most of the previous releases, The Dis­sent Of Man is almost scandalously apolitical. There are love songs, nostalgic memoirs, charac­ter portraits — and only a tiny handful of songs that explicitly mention Afghanistan (ʽAd Homi­nemʼ) or descend into moralizing, with more of a Biblical flavor sometimes than a Chomsky one ("well I know what's wrong, and I know what's right, and I know that evil exists sure as day turns into night" — a simplistic, but damn well constructed couple of lines, actually).

This is either a sign that the band is getting old, after all, and getting ready to pass on the torch, or perhaps it is just a side effect of the Obama factor, but in any case, it works well in terms of the general atmosphere — there is nothing on here that could be filed under «cringeworthy banality», although there is nothing that comes close to the apocalyptic fervor of ʽNew Dark Agesʼ, either. All that remains is give this stuff another thumbs up. Which, at this point, merely indicates that «Bad Religion have not lost it yet», although, presumably, only death itself — or three severe cases of either finger arthritis or Alzheimer's —  will break this interminable chain, because wri­ting and recording songs like these is theoretically a process without any boundaries whatsoever.

  
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Bad Religion: 30 Years Live

BAD RELIGION: 30 YEARS LIVE (2010)

1) Fuck Armageddon, This Is Hell; 2) Dearly Beloved; 3) Suffer; 4) Man With A Mission; 5) New Dark Ages; 6) Germs Of Perfection; 7) Marked; 8) A Walk; 9) Flat Earth Society; 10) Resist Stance; 11) American Jesus; 12) Social Suicide; 13) Atheist Peace; 14) Tomorrow; 15) Won't Somebody; 16) Los Angeles Is Burning; 17) We're Only Gonna Die.

I suppose that every band that has managed to last for 30 years — yes, even Chicago! — is en­titled to a live album commemorating such a jubilee, particularly if it is offered as a free down­load, so that nobody has any official reason to complain: if you don't want it, pretend it never existed, and don't worry about your refunds. And besides — honestly, not every rock'n'roll band will last 30 years without losing a single vibration of their original sound. Of course, sticking to hardcore regulations helps a lot: unlike, say, The Rolling Stones, you have to keep yourself in super-tight shape at all times to match the format. No matter how many chords are involved — throw yourself off the rhythm once or twice and you're dead. From that point of view, 30 years on, Bad Religion are, indeed, very much alive.

Most sources state that the 30-year jubilee tour went a notch higher in pomposity than usual: every night, the band would play exactly 30 songs, which extended the preferable length of the show to about twice as long as required by everybody's understanding of the norms of hardcore. (For some reason, they only played about 20 dates, though, which drags down the symbolic value of the tour). Furthermore, no single setlist repeated itself more than once, assuring us all that Bad Religion are capable of such endearing silliness as memorizing their entire catalog (not that it should require a particularly large stock of memory cells, but Graffin does have to remember all the words, not to mention spitting 'em out at rapid-fire rates — that university degree has got to count for something, after all).

Disappointingly, the resulting album only has 17 songs, clocking in at a measly 41 minutes — a strange decision, since a 70-minute download with thirty songs in 2010 would hardly result in overclocking anybody's bandwidth. The «defective» setlist consequently overlooks several key albums — nothing from No Control or The New America, for instance — and is heavily biased towards the «new shit», with around three songs each for the new albums and even a preview of a couple numbers from the upcoming Dissent Of Man. Obviously, this is supposed to mean that even thirty years into their career, Bad Religion are still as relevant for the world as they used to be — and even though we might be sick to death of them already, we still have to admit that, in a way, this is absolutely true.

Rating this album feels useless: the performances are predictably top-notch and just as predic­tably predictable, with both sides canceling out each other's excitement and boredom. The setlist does tilt somewhat into the «non-hit» direction: many of the oldies and most of the «newies» are either second-row singles or non-singles, so you get a chance to refresh stuff like ʽMarkedʼ or ʽTomorrowʼ in your memories. And, conspicuously, the album both opens and closes with a num­ber from How Could Hell Be Any Worse?, implying that, perhaps, after all, the band does acknowledge that it already had said it all on their first LP — and that everything that followed was just for the pinheads who didn't get it straight the first time. Other than that, there is really nothing else to prompt any serious mental activity on the part of the reviewer.

 

Bad Religion: New Maps Of Hell

BAD RELIGION: NEW MAPS OF HELL (2007)

1) 52 Seconds; 2) Heroes & Martyrs; 3) Germs Of Perfection; 4) New Dark Ages; 5) Requiem For Dissent; 6) Before You Die; 7) Honest Goodbye; 8) Dearly Beloved; 9) Grains Of Wrath; 10) Murder; 11) Scrutiny; 12) Prodigal Son; 13) The Grand Delusion; 14) Lost Pilgrim; 15) Submission Complete; 16) Fields Of Mars.

Nothing I can say, write, or even think of will seem fresh, relevant, or startling when it comes to New Maps Of Hell, Bad Religion's 14th studio album that could just as well be 5th, 12th, 16th, or 667th. By now, it is clear that there are only two types of Bad Religion albums: those that are fast, aggressive, and kick-ass, and those that are slower, feebler, and duller. With Gurewitz still in the band, and Hetson and Baker still sticking to second and third guitar respectively, and — most importantly — the George W. Bush administration still in power, you may make a safe bet that this album will rather fall in the first than the second category. And that's about all that may mat­ter to anyone who ever cared about Bad Religion.

Well, on second thought, let us be fair: Gurewitz and Graffin are still trying to come up with new chord sequences and new patterns of guitar interplay. As simple as the basic formula is, any mu­sicologist will tell you that its raw potential is not that limited — particularly when you have three guitars at your disposal and a permission to work poppy vocal hooks into your choruses. ʽHeroes & Martyrsʼ may be undistinguishable from ʽGerms Of Perfectionʼ upon first listen, going for the same mood at the same speed with the same guitar tones, but the main riffs are different — first one a little more syncopated and metallic, second one a little more «folk-punkish» (first one credited to Gurewitz, second to Graffin: feel the difference?).

And goddamnit, but they do sound great on ʽNew Dark Agesʼ — an even better anthem than ʽThe Empire Strikes Firstʼ, especially for those ready to believe that the «new dark ages» are indeed upon us (living in Putin's Russia helps plenty, but is hardly an obligatory condition). The scrat­chy choo-choo train riffage, the well-crafted vocal buildup to the chorus, the desperate release of "these are the new dark ages and the world may end tonight" — all that's lacking is one of these bursting-with-madness Mötörhead-ish guitar solos.

What this means is, if there is at least one great track on a Bad Religion album that one feels pressed to mention, this is already a positive sign — there actually may be others. You just have to grope around a bit; I do not have much time for that, so I can only say that ʽFields Of Marsʼ has a brief piano intro (which then returns for an interlude), and that ʽProdigal Sonʼ features a blunt lyrical reference to Fogerty's ʽFortunate Sonʼ (just for the sake of being able to sing "I ain't no prodigal son" instead of "fortunate son" — intertextuality ahoy!).

In the end, we will just let it be with another thumbs up — maybe the songs, overall, are a trifle less inventive than the ones on Empire, but the motivation, the fire, and the hooks are all there, even if albums like these are like a wave of reviewer's nightmares.

 
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Bad Religion: The Empire Strikes First

BAD RELIGION: THE EMPIRE STRIKES FIRST (2004)

1) Overture; 2) Sinister Rouge; 3) Social Suicide; 4) Atheist Peace; 5) All There Is; 6) Los Angeles Is Burning; 7) Let Them Eat War; 8) God's Love; 9) To Another Abyss; 10) The Quickening; 11) The Empire Strikes First; 12) Beyond Electric Dreams; 13) Boot Stamping On A Human Face Forever; 14) Live Again (The Fall Of Man).

Perhaps, after the initial period of happiness at Gurewitz's return had ended, Bad Religion would have withered and died down again — but, as fate would have it, soon after The Process Of Belief came the Iraq war, and along with it, the Bush doctrine of preventive strikes; and there is nothing more effective than a little imperialist warfare to get the old flames reignited up to high heavens when it comes to Bad Religion. Of course, when you are as radically left as these guys, you will always have enough reasons to fuel your fire (at least, until communism comes and your music gets officially banned by the local Party secretary), but still, radical protest under Clinton is one thing, and under George W. is quite another. Suddenly, for a while, everything starts making better sense than it used to, and you might even find grounds for true inspiration.

There are actually a couple of genuine popcore classics here, both contributed by Gurewitz. ʽThe Quickeningʼ ranks with the best they ever did — the speed, the infectious chorus of "to come alive, to come alive", the good old Mötörhead-style guitar solo, all of that stuff is really catchy, fun, and «igniting». And the title track, although much slower, shows great skill in the vocal ar­ranging of the band's major political declaration — "don't wanna live, don't wanna give, don't wanna be E-M-P-I-R-E" with several lines of overdubbed pleading vocals, convincingly striking out a note of utmost black despair.

ʽLos Angeles Is Burningʼ was the single — maybe they calculated that any track titled «[Insert Major City Name Here] Burning», once The Clash set the initial trend, would automatically be a hit, but this one wasn't much of one, and for a good reason: a bitt too slow and lumbering for a proper anthem, and, for some reason, stealing the main riff from the Ramones' ʽBeat On The Bratʼ for the major hookline. (Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & The Heartbeakers' fame adds some guest star guitar for a change, but it does not help much).

Still, cute little hooks can be dug up in other spots as well — they come up with a good chorus for ʽAll There Isʼ, add a strange lo-fi guitar coda to ʽAtheist Peaceʼ, get a fine anthemic triple guitar intro for ʽLet Them Eat Warʼ, invent a gruff dirge-like riff for ʽBoot Stampingʼ... overall, it looks like Gurewitz's return has achieved the impossible — for a brief while, the band seems to be caring about the sonic side of their business almost as much as it continues caring for their public image. Like Alice Cooper says, "it's just the little things that drive me wild", and, surprise surprise, there are enough of these little things on The Empire to make it into Bad Religion's most interesting album of the 2000s, even though — mind you! — this is not saying much. But at least it is enough to fish them out another thumbs up.

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Bad Religion: The Process Of Belief

BAD RELIGION: THE PROCESS OF BELIEF (2002)

1) Supersonic; 2) Prove It; 3) Can't Stop It; 4) Broken; 5) Destined For Nothing; 6) Materialist; 7) Kyoto Now; 8) Sorrow; 9) Epi­phany; 10) Evangeline; 11) The Defense; 12) The Lie; 13) You Don't Belong; 14) Bored And Extremely Dangerous; 15*) Shat­te­red Faith.

No more Todd Rundgren, but a whole lot more Brett Gurewitz, back full time not only as guitar player, but also as one of the two chief songwriters — although, frankly speaking, decades of li­ving either under or in the shadow of the Bad Religion banner has pretty much neutralized the styles of the two: I am not strong enough to easily discern between Brett's and Greg's signatures. Lyrics-wise, Graffin tends to be more issue-specific than Gurewitz and more prominently show off his educated intellectualism in his radicalism, but musically, these melodies are almost totally interchangeable between brothers-in-arms.

Anyway, the reunion, the sacking of Rundgren, and the label move from Atlantic to Epitaph re­sulted in some predictable nano-changes. The ensuing album is a little less pop, a little faster, and a little crunchier in terms of guitar tones. Select opinions — and with each passing year, opinions on Bad Religion's new albums become more and more «select» — suggested that here was a deli­berate move in the backwards direction of Suffer. Who can really tell without a microscope? All I know is, the production still sounds 2002 rather than 1988, with the guitars all muffled rather than «trebly», and what other difference could there be?

As usual, let us talk in terms of singles. ʽSorrowʼ managed to become a minor hit, but the only interesting thing about it is that it starts out as a reggae number — the band's first foray into the genre thus far — before quickly shifting gears and launching into the usual «folk-punk» mode à la «Woody Guthrie goes hardcore». ʽBrokenʼ is a tune about human relationship between actual humans (no shit!) that switches to near-complete acoustic backing for the verses — another first? Not too memorable otherwise. ʽSupersonicʼ is classic quintessential Bad Religion: as fast as the title suggests, energetic, and kinda meaningless: "I gotta go faster, keep up the pace / Just to stay in the human race" — is that why they keep on releasing a new album every two years?

Best of the bunch is probably ʽThe Defenseʼ, for which the band cooked up a little atmosphere: backward guitars, Mid-Eastern / symph-metal chord changes (well, maybe not quite), a far more tricky than usual vocal architectonic structure, and a suitably apocalyptic set of lyrics. Without over­rating its complexity or effectiveness, I could safely say, at the very least, that it is just a good song, and that it stands out on its own — something that you very, very rarely get on any given BR album (I mean, unless you are a religiously devoted fan, how many different BR songs can you actually single out from the rest and remember as individual entities?).

Curiously, all four singles were credited to Gurewitz — maybe in a fit of gratitude on Graffin's part. In fact, the songwriting is evenly split in half, but out of Graffin's material, I could only say something about ʽBored And Extremely Dangerousʼ ("With nothing better to do / I woefully con­clude / To take it out on you" — aw come now, Greg, you have been taking it out on us for twen­ty years now), which has a few seconds of «non-music sounds» interrupting the flow to further impress us with how bored everyone really is; and about ʽKyoto Nowʼ, which is the only straight­forward pro-Pro­tocol piece of propaganda dressed in the form of popcore that I know of (there must be others, I guess), but has no other merits to speak of.

Okay, so that's about it. Faster, louder, crunchier than they used to be over the past several years, so if you're only in it for the ass-kicking, The Process Of Belief might be right up your alley. But the usual problems won't go anywhere any time soon, either, and now that they have entered the middle age of dynamic compression, this is not going to be the Bad Religion of old. So yes, it does matter whether you are buying The Process Of Belief or Against The Grain as your intro­duction to America's chomskiest rock band.

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Bad Religion: The New America

BAD RELIGION: THE NEW AMERICA (2000)

1) You've Got A Chance; 2) It's A Long Way To The Promise Land; 3) A World Without Melody; 4) New America; 5) 1000 Memories; 6) A Streetkid Named Desire; 7) Whisper In Time; 8) Believe It; 9) I Love My Computer; 10) The Hopeless House­wife; 11) There Will Be A Way; 12) Let It Burn; 13) Don't Sell Me Short.

A bit of a change here, and an overall improvement. First, none other than pop master-craftsman Todd Rundgren himself was brought in as producer — and, although working relationships be­tween Graffin and the «True Star» were said to be rather tense, Todd still managed to leave a very strong power pop stamp on the proceedings: quite obviously, he did not give a damn about Bad Religion's hardcore reputation, and did everything he could to slow down the freaky tempos, add extra ring and color to the guitars, smother the melodies in choral harmonies, and, overall, try to have the band play four chords wherever they would previously settle for three.

In short, even though Graffin is still listed as sole writer on most of the tracks, it is probably not a coincidence that it is exactly this Rundgren-produced album to feature a song that begins with the words "I don't want to live in a world without melody / Sometimes the rhythmic din of society is too much for me" — substitute «society» for «Bad Religion» and you will see just how much «The Wi­zard» was able to hypnotize Graffin. Of course, even without Todd, the band was alre­ady moving from «hardcore» to «popcore» for quite a bit of time, so the seeds fell on fertile soil. The problem is — what are we planting, exactly?

And here comes the second first: the album is a huge lyrical improvement over No Substance as well. Although the main focus is on society perspectives as usual, there is a three-song «suite» stuck in the middle focused on far more personal affairs: ʽ1000 Memoriesʼ is about Graffin's re­cent divorce, while ʽA Streetkid Named Desireʼ and ʽWhisper In Timeʼ deal with past memories and, basically, add a little bit of introspection — ever wanted to know how come Greg Graffin became what he is? well, here is your chance to get a glance at the man behind The Man.

But the rest of the songs, too, are delivered in a somewhat different key, shifting the emphasis from Chomsky-style radical hatred and propaganda to visionary sermons: with track names like ʽYou've Got A Chanceʼ, ʽIt's A Long Way To The Promise Landʼ, and ʽThere Will Be A Wayʼ, you can see that there is — just for a change — an attempt to stir up some positive emotions, and do it in a way that is not necessarily linked to the right here and the right now, but at least purely formally aspires to the timelessness of the message. Not that the message itself is new or anything — and the lyrics are definitely not among Greg's best ("Shut your eyes, see the future's distant shore / March ahead more enlightened than before / And there's sure to be bumps and distractions / But I know we'll get through / There will be me, there will be you" — yes, years of radicalism and hardcore musicianship may inflict heavy damage even on a university professor). But at least you no longer feel yourself stuck in the middle of a narrow-minded  political rally, behind locked and barred doors, and that is a big relief.

All this leads to an overall increase in memorability — with the choruses bent just a bit more on melody and just a bit less on indoctrination, they are occasionally fun to sing along (unless they become too anthemic, as on the title track). There is even an «experimental» track — ʽI Love My Computerʼ, the next installment in Greg's ongoing saga of «How Electronics Helps Ruin Our Lives And Turn Us Into Mindless Puppets», this time with a mock-subliminal message of "click me, click me" built in and little electronic burps and blurbs adding up to the atmosphere. Hilari­ous, but the chorus of "I just click and you just go away" is the catchiest bit on the album. And highly instructive, too. For instance, I just clicked — and Bad Religion just went away. Amazing, isn't it? The wonderful world of technology.

On a technical note, The New America sees Gurewitz briefly returning to the fold — co-writing one of the songs, ʽBelieve Itʼ, and playing guitar on it, presaging his eventual permanent return on the next album. Curiously, it is one of the poppiest, jangliest numbers on the album, even though Gurewitz was never the primary pop engine in the band — well, blame it all on Todd, I guess.

Anyway, just for a change, I give this album a thumbs up in recognition of its rather unusual status in BR's catalog, and most importantly, in the overall context — it is such a huge improve­ment on the pathetic loaded boredom of No Substance that this simply has to be somehow reflec­ted in the overall chronology. Do keep in mind, though, that it is far from a fan favorite: even those who are accustomed to the «popcore» direction often have a hard time acknowledging Todd Rundgren's right to put his nose in the genre.

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Bad Religion: No Substance

BAD RELIGION: NO SUBSTANCE (1998)

1) Hear It; 2) Shades Of Truth; 3) All Fantastic Images; 4) The Biggest Killer In American History; 5) No Substance; 6) Raise Your Voice!; 7) Sowing The Seeds Of Utopia; 8) The Hippy Killers; 9) The State Of The End Of The Millenium Address; 10) The Voracious March Of Godliness; 11) Mediocre Minds; 12) Victims Of The Revolution; 13) Strange Denial; 14) At The Mercy Of Imbeciles; 15) The Same Person; 16) In So Many Ways.

If I were Greg Graffin, I would think twice before calling one of my albums No Substance. Not only do you have to wait until track no. 5 before certifying that he means America as a whole and not just himself as part of it, you have to find a way to convince yourself that this next batch of same-sounding, completely predictable, and, by now, thoroughly toothless Bad Religion slogans somehow pretends to having more substance than, oh I dunno, the Bill Clinton government, to give but one of the many examples.

The thing is, No Substance probably represents the highest peak of Graffin's political activism — at this point, he is not merely the «hardcore equivalent» of Noam Chomsky, he is making every single effort he can to shove that fact into our faces. Yes, there is nothing inherently wrong with politics in music, and yes, Noam Chomsky has just as many rights to owning a personal musical agent as Rush Limbaugh, but at this point, there is so little that is truly «musical» about Bad Re­ligion that I have no idea about the size of the potential dividends.

The transparent culprit is clearly ʽThe State Of The End Of The Millenium Addressʼ (yes, «mil­lenium» explicitly printed with one ʽnʼ — what else do you expect from the rotten imperialist swine at Atlantic Records? guess they had to derail the message any stinky subversive way they could, embarrassing Mr. Graffin before all of his educated college audiences): over a threatening wall of feedback, you get to hear about how "The Internet has expanded our ability to pacify ave­rage Americans better than ever by offering fantastical adventures to every corner of the imagi­nation", etc. etc. Perfectly convincing, but the only nagging suspicion is — if just about every­thing is part of The Plot, how about Bad Religion themselves? Where do they come in?

Honestly, I have no idea, except that three required listens to No Substance have drained me of 135 minutes of time that might have been more effectively spent planting bombs in the headquar­ters of The World's Most Evil Government, wherever that one is. As usual, there are a few catchy choruses — there always are at least a few catchy choruses on a Bad Religion album — but some of them are hicky almost beyond belief, such as "fa fa fa fa, fa fa fa fa, fa fa fa fa, raise your voice!": are we now relying on Sha Na Na methodology to convey the message? Others are just stupid (ʽThe Biggest Killer In American Historyʼ; ʽThe Hippy Killersʼ — both songs designed simply to make the listener sing along to the title), and I can only quote Mark Prindle on ʽMedi­ocre Mindsʼ: "Next time Greg wants to bitch about somebody with a «mediocre mind»" I'll ask him to kindly not rip off the melody of ʽYummy Yummy Yummy, I've Got Love In My Tummyʼ in doing so". Pretty much summarizes my idea of the album, too.

Basically, what makes the difference between a Suffer-type album and a No Substance-type album is that the former somehow tried to express frustration in the music, while the latter invests 90% of the funds in the lyrics. All of these riffs, rhythms, and solos are punched out on total auto­pilot — although you cannot get this feeling by just comparing individual songs (Bad Religion does not operate in terms of songs), you have to listen to the albums from start to finish. There is no reason to doubt Graffin's sincerity, but that is the typical problem of «The Disillusioned Idea­list»: the fewer people you see following your sermons, the more bitter you get about it, until, at some point, you simply start living for these sermons, dumping everything else. Well — if I want a sermon, I'll just download myself an audio book from Noam in person, rather than listen to his «musical» lackeys. Thumbs down, all you brothers and sisters under oppression.

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Bad Religion: Tested

BAD RELIGION: TESTED (1997)

1) Operation Rescue; 2) Punk Rock Song; 3) Tomorrow; 4) A Walk; 5) God Song; 6) Pity The Dead; 7) One Thousand More Fools; 8) Drunk Sincerity; 9) Generator; 10) Change Of Ideas; 11) Portrait Of Authority; 12) What It Is; 13) Dream Of Unity; 14) Sanity; 15) American Jesus; 16) Do What You Want; 17) Part III; 18) 10 In 2010; 19) No Direction; 20) Along The Way; 21) Recipe For Hate; 22) Fuck Armageddon; 23) It's Reciprocal; 24) Struck A Nerve; 25) Leave Mine To Me; 26) Tested; 27) No Control.

Get out the calculators. 3 completely new, previously unissued songs; 5 songs from The Gray Race (1996); 2 songs from Stranger Than Fiction (1994); 4 songs from Recipe For Hate (1993); 3 songs from Generator (1992); 2 songs from Against The Grain (1990); 3 songs from No Control (1989); 2 songs from Suffer (1988); 1 song from Back To The Known (1984); 2 songs from How Could Hell Be Any Worse (1982). Boy, do these guys have a large disco­graphy — and boy, do they love to love it. All except Into The Unknown, that is, which is im­portant, because it is the only clue we have here that Greg Graffin can actually accept a few mis­takes (or at least one mistake) in his life.

If there could ever be a point in a Bad Religion live album, then Graffin and Co. make everything in their power to avoid it. First, a real good live punk rock show should last about the same as a real good punk rock album — no more than half an hour at best; Tested spills over an hour-long vessel, and listening to Bad Religion for more than sixty minutes is only recommendable for real strong guys with lots of frustration to vent, more than I could ever imagine (and I'm feeling pretty pissed off right now myself). Second, even in punk rock, it does help if you try and make your material a little bit different from the studio originals — even if you just speed it up a bit, like the Ramones — and this might be the main reason why punk bands do not frequently bother with live recordings, since most of them already have a live-in-the-studio sound.

Third and most important, Graffin chose a very strange approach here: instead of doing like eve­ry­body else and «miking the stage», he simply directed all the instruments straight into the recor­ding console. This allowed the sound to be captured as faithfully and cleanly as possible, and the reasonable point to be lost completely. The new, crazy point is to answer the question: «How fuckin' good — technically — are Bad Religion when they go onstage and play their material?» The normal answer to that question, in a logical world, would be: «Who fuckin' cares?» Only a band with a very puffed up sense of self-importance would demand a different one.

In addition, the actual recordings were all taken from different shows and selected with great care out of a pile of look-alikes — you'd think it was Glenn Gould here sorting through the tapes, not the leader of a generic hardcore outfit regularly operating at a three-chord level. With no conti­nuity whatsoever to the proceedings, they don't even formally qualify as a «live punk rock show». What's the actual sense, then? Just try to assert your intellectual superiority over all competition by «doing something different»? How about some humility here? Would be nice for a band whose workbag of musical ideas is kinda skinny, to put it mildly.

Not that the whole thing is utterly bland, uninspired, disgusting, or anything. The song selection is all right — at this point, it is fairly difficult even to remember what were the «highlights» and the «lowlights» on the band's original albums anyway — and of the new songs, only the super-slow, ultra-pathetic ʽDream Of Unityʼ goes over the top in an adequacy-defying manner. As a general retrospective, it isn't too bad (although one wonders why they didn't arrange the songs in chronological order, if they are fading out after each track anyway). But high up above the simple «like it or hate it» level, most live albums set out to prove a purpose — and Tested seems to prove all the wrong ones. Thumbs down, simply because I doubt I'll ever listen to it again. In fact, I have similar doubts about plenty of other BR albums, but if there is anything in particular that the title of Tested refers to — it's patience, yours and mine. In any case, buying the album won't solve the world's problems, as Graffin would have you do. You might just as well donate your money to a financial pyramid.

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Bad Religion: The Gray Race

BAD RELIGION: THE GRAY RACE (1996)

1) The Gray Race; 2) Them And Us; 3) A Walk; 4) Parallel; 5) Punk Rock Song; 6) Empty Causes; 7) Nobody Listens; 8) Pity The Dead; 9) Spirit Shine; 10) The Streets Of America; 11) Ten In 2010; 12) Victory; 13) Drunk Sincerity; 14) Come Join Us; 15) Cease; 16*) Punk Rock Song (German version).

Still with Atlantic, but with some major changes in personnel: (a) this is the band's first record with­out Gurewitz, who left for a variety of reasons (he himself quoted the need to concentrate on managerial work at Epitaph Records, whereas Graffin would hint at increased drug use); (b) this is their first — and only — record produced by none other than Ric Ocasek of The Cars. Both of these factors could finally hint at a fresh change in the overall sound, for better or for worse. And? Take a guess?...

...you are absolutely correct, The Gray Race sounds exactly like Stranger Than Fiction. New guitarist Brian Baker, formerly of Samhain, Government Issue, Junkyard, Minor Threat, The Meat­men, Dag Nasty, Doggy Style, and probably a host of other hardcore outfits that only the most hardcore fans have heard about, is not seriously distinguishable from Brett; and as for the production, unless Ocasek saddled this band with synthesizers — which was probably out of the question — would have to remain the same anyway.

So, here is another set of mostly interchangeable and rather generic «melodic hardcore» from the world's leading combo of human rights activists who happen to like speed, distortion, rock poetry, and moralizing at the same time. At this point, their mid-tempo stuff is already close to unbea­rable — I have no business listening to metronomic crap like 'The Streets Of Americaʼ, no matter how anthemic Graffin always makes it sound; and, unfortunately, quite a few of the fast songs start sounding just as boring and clichéd as the slow ones — ʽDrunk Sincerityʼ, for instance, just seems like they threw on an extra drum part as an afterthought.

The lead singles were ʽA Walkʼ, which is not a bad song (at least there is a nice, tense buildup from verse to chorus, as the rising bassline takes your spirit higher); and ʽPunk Rock Songʼ, which is just too clean, poppy, and politically correct to merit the title — yes, it is a punk rock song in general form and structure, but there is nothing in the world to justify it as an exemplary punk rock song, which it isn't, and re-recording it in German (this extra version is appended as a bonus track) does not help much to elevate its status.

Since, other than ʽA Walkʼ, there is not a single song here that commands my attention (not even the title track this time can boast a strong hook), this is the first Bad Religion album since Into The Unknown that demands a certified thumbs down. As long as the verve and inspiration were there somehow, I could respect the style enough to acknowledge its existence. But with Gray Race, Bad Religion seem to finally cross that line — for me, at least — where «respectfully tole­rable» finally morphs into «unbearably dull». For other people, that line might have come signi­ficantly earlier, or somewhat later, but it is clear that somewhere, somehow one simply has to draw that line. My tired buck, sick of recycled punk riffs and idealistic sentiments rekindled like burnt out matches, sort of stops here. And I am sure that this has even nothing to do with the de­parture of Gurewitz. It's just a question of time.

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Bad Religion: Stranger Than Fiction

BAD RELIGION: STRANGER THAN FICTION (1994)

1) Incomplete; 2) Leave Mine To Me; 3) Stranger Than Fiction; 4) Tiny Voices; 5) The Handshake; 6) Better Off Dead; 7) In­fected; 8) Television; 9) Individual; 10) Hooray For Me...; 11) Slumber; 12) Marked; 13) Inner Logic; 14) What It Is; 15) 21st Century (Digital Boy); 16*) News From The Front; 17*) Markovian Process.

Another year... The only generalization that can be generalized about this record has already been made in the All-Music Guide review: Bad Religion sign up with a major record label and, in or­der to convince the fanbase that this is not a sellout, try their best to come up with an «authentic» BR record, dumping all the variety of the previous two albums. That is as correct as they come: Stranger Than Fiction is all tense, all fast, almost all a stylistic clone of Suffer. Whether this is good, bad, or who-the-heck-cares is a different thing. In a way, Bad Religion might be like AC/DC — it's very easy to get sick of the formula, but nothing else seems to work as efficiently. Change and perish, always stay the same and prosper.

For tactical reasons, the band re-recorded ʽ21st Century Digital Boyʼ for this album — now that they had a larger distribution base, re-releasing their most famous song seemed like the right thing to do. According to one of the versions, they were forced to do this by the people at Atlantic who wanted a hit single and saw no potential in the rest of the songs. Were they right or were they wrong? Well, let's just take a look at these other singles.

ʽInfectedʼ, the album's slowest and «grandest» number, starts off with a few blasts of feedback that almost sound like a pompous brass intro­duction — then chuggishly builds up towards a look-at-me-suffer chorus. It is the only song here that would not seem fit for their late 1980s albums, and for a good reason: it sounds like a boring post-grunge teen-angst anthem — not even graced with another set of Graffin's intellectualized lyrics: "You affect me / You infect me / I'm afflicted / I'm addicted / You and me" is not exactly the most inspiring chorus in BR history.

Third single was the title track: London Calling-style punk-power-pop here, upbeat, martial, lyrically rich — and not catchy in the least. You know something's not right when the song's idea of «catchiness» is to insert the word "obituary" in the empty musical space between the chorus and the next verse. It's not even shocking. And the fact that "Life is the crummiest book I ever read / There isn't a hook, just a lot of cheap shots" is not something I'd be willing to take for an excuse. Even if that is true, it does not mean that art has to follow life in everything. I, for one, did not start listening to Bad Religion for any «cheap shots».

That leaves us with the fourth single, and it is the only one worthy of close attention: ʽIncom­pleteʼ is probably the best song on the album, just because the tough, passionate start — "Mother! father! look at your little monster, I'm a hero, I'm a zero, I'm the butt of the worst joke in history" — is overwhelming, the best shot of inspiration on the album. This is classic Bad Religion stuff: anti-social ranting, well constructed lyrics, speed, fury, hatred, madness, and wisdom.

There are quite a few other songs like that on Stranger Than Fiction, scattered here and there — ʽTiny Voicesʼ, ʽThe Handshakeʼ, ʽIndividualʼ, etc. — but there is also quite a bit of stuff that goes easy on the hatred, or the lyrics, or the speed, or the fury, and that's bad, because it does not add much to the album's general feel of diversity, yet makes it less intense and cutting-edge than the Suffer-era trilogy. And the very fact that they had to re-record a much earlier song to stimulate interest in the album is quite telling.

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Bad Religion: Recipe For Hate

BAD RELIGION: RECIPE FOR HATE (1993)

1) Recipe For Hate; 2) Kerosene; 3) American Jesus; 4) Portrait Of Authority; 5) Man With A Mission; 6) All Good Soldiers; 7) Watch It Die; 8) Struck A Nerve; 9) My Poor Friend Me; 10) Lookin' In; 11) Don't Pray On Me; 12) Modern Day Catastrophists; 13) Skyscraper; 14) Stealth.

Unfortunately, the degeneration continues, and on Recipe For Hate starts getting seriously noti­ce­able. While musical change is certainly welcome per se, the reasons behind this kind of change had more to do with Graffin's growing self-importance than any sort of desire to explore new mu­sical ground. As the mean punch grows weaker, the pathos gets stronger, and the album hardly even begins living up to its name — by now, influences from pop, country, folk, and the newly nascent grunge scene (Eddie Vedder even contributes guest backing vocals to one of the songs) have seriously eroded Bad Religion's ability to generate pure, raffinated hatred.

To be fair, the title track works well in the old style (except for the bridge, which slows down the tempo and turns the song from hardcore into grunge), but already ʽKeroseneʼ, with its sing-along, melodic chorus shows that Bad Religion have made a serious investment in the pathos market, and it only gets worse from there. Now we have an abundance of slow tempos, melodies drowned in buzz and distortion, and vocals that invite us to sing along with anthemic pride. Yes, the lyrics are still decent enough, but it's not as if things have changed much, or Graffin has found any new subjects to sing about, in the past few years — just a bunch of verbal modifications to describe the PSS (Permanent State of Shit) in which happy America finds itself.

Even though I will have a hard time remembering them, the best songs here are the ones that would fit in well on Against The Grain — speedy, bitey, with flashy solos and fast-fleeting vo­cals, like the title track, ʽMy Poor Friend Meʼ, and ʽLookin' Inʼ. I couldn't care less about ʽMan With A Missionʼ, which tries to spice things up with a slide guitar part and «soulful» vocals that sound like a cross between Eddie Vedder, Bono, and John Doe from downtown (Eddie wins, be­cause in the end it does sound just like a sped up Pearl Jam with some country guitar on top). Nor do I give a damn about the «martial» overtones of ʽAll Good Soldiersʼ, or about the pub-folk vibe of ʽWatch It Dieʼ, no matter how vehemently it keeps on preaching the apocalypse.

Apparently, at this moment the apex of Bad Religion's creativity is supposed to be ensconced in a track like ʽStealthʼ — a fourty-second splicing of excerpts from George Bush's Union Address, making him say stuff like "this weekend I will spend over 800 million dollars on drugs" and "I will continue pushing free narcotics for all low income people". Umm... what? Is that considered to be funny, or instructive, or inspirational? Okay, so it is just a silly joke tucked on to the end of the album, but somehow I've always preferred "her Majesty's a pretty nice girl".

It's fairly indicative of the overall spirit, though — as «socially relevant» lyrics and statements to­tally get the better of the band, they simply become... boring. I mean, why write new and worse songs about the same old shit if you can just keep on singing the old and better ones? Recipe For Hate, you say? Well, I prefer my hate to be cooked without any fucking recipes. Good title, good album cover, fairly sorrowful content-to-form match — even if it was their best-selling album to date, but that's just because people usually do not like to take their medicine at break­neck speed: with Bad Religion taking more and more cues from the grunge movement, their commercial po­tential keeps growing at an exponential.

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Bad Religion: Generator

BAD RELIGION: GENERATOR (1992)

1) Generator; 2) Too Much To Ask; 3) No Direction; 4) Tomorrow; 5) Two Babies In The Dark; 6) Heaven Is Falling; 7) Atomic Garden; 8) The Answer; 9) Fertile Crescent; 10) Chimaera; 11) Only Entertainment.

Enough subtle changes here to introduce a demarcation line between the earlier trilogy and this new period in Bad Religion's life, as the band grows older, «wiser», and a little more concerned with the melodic side of its art than sheer energy levels. Unfortunately, it is a bit too late to care about melody if you haven't already done that in your formative years — and, as a result, Ge­nera­tor is just a little bit more limp and lax than its predecessors, without necessarily being more memorable or emotionally complex.

Alarmingly, the title track opens things with what sounds like sped-up alt-rock rather than hard­core, especially due to the vocal melody, openly sung, rather than recited, by Griffin, and the gui­tar interplay, which wouldn't be out of place on an Ash record. This is not awful or ominous per se, but it takes a large bite out of the reasons why Bad Religion would need to exist in the first place — not as a footstool to accommodate Graffin's poetry, but as a monstrous locomotive to pro­pel it along. Reduce the speed by 10 mph, and where does that get you?

What remains is the conviction: ʽGeneratorʼ, with its universal anger, and the more specifically targeted ʽHeaven Is Fallingʼ (anti-war) and ʽOnly Entertainmentʼ (anti-TV) are tradition-respec­ting anthems that word their concerns cleverly and sloganize their choruses accordingly: chanting these titles along with the band ensures close emotional unity, and, possibly, a willingness to break the neck of anybody who'd dare claim that all these songs are kinda monotonous.

Breaking that monotonousness are the slower numbers — such as ʽTwo Babies In The Darkʼ, the best thing about which are the wailing «woman-tone» guitar breaks, and ʽThe Answerʼ, structured as a guruistic parable with a logical conclusion ("everyone's begging for an answer without re­gard to validity" — something that every true scientist should always bear in mind), but so much bent on its dogmatic aspect that it almost forgets to rock. And the day when we have to accept Greg Graffin as our spiritual leader, based simply on the words he speaks, is the day when we no longer have to accept Bad Religion as a band worth a pound of dogshit.

If pressed hard to name one major highlight, I would probably have to stop at ʽAtomic Gardenʼ. Nicely found simplistic, elegantly looped riff, cool whiny, psychedelic guitar tone for the leads, non-preachy lyrics that probably deal with nuclear issues but you wouldn't want to wager on that (and namedrop Gorbachev one year after the man's resignation — get your relevance level right, you guys!), and, overall, some nice old school garage rock influence here, rather than the usual hardcore jackhammer or, worse, a smoothed-over alt-rock approach.

But overall, you'd really have to be a major admirer of Graffin's views on world issues and abili­ty to express them in order to love Generator as much as its predecessors. The grip has been re­laxed, stylistic concessions have been made, and the band seems ready to begin considering mo­ving into the realm of «elder statesmen». Thumbs up anyway, because nothing here really rubs me the wrong way — however, do remember that «fresh» Bad Religion starts morphing into «yesterday's papers» somewhere around here.

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Bad Religion: Against The Grain

BAD RELIGION: AGAINST THE GRAIN (1990)

1) Modern Man; 2) Turn On The Light; 3) Get Off; 4) Blenderhead; 5) The Positive Aspect Of Negative Thinking; 6) Anesthesia; 7) Flat Earth Society; 8) Faith Alone; 9) Entropy; 10) Against The Grain; 11) Operation Rescue; 12) God Song; 13) 21st Century (Digital Boy); 14) Misery And Famine; 15) Unacceptable; 16) Quality Or Quantity; 17) Walk Away.

The last album in Bad Religion's classic trilogy — for some fans, the best, and for some the worst of the lot, although, personally, the only big difference that I can see is that the guitar solos are back, in a big, easily noticeable way. More than ever before, the band now sounds like a slightly «cleaner» version of Mötörhead — «cleaner» only because Jay Bentley is just a bass player, with no ambitions of turning his instrument into Hell's own jackhammer like Lemmy does. In all other respects now, this goes beyond a simplistic headbanger's dream and heads for the pleasure centers of the raving fan of the air guitar.

The only other flash of individuality is that this is the album that has ʽ21st Century (Digital Boy)ʼ on it. Slower than the rest, with more overtly melodic vocals and a downright «poppy», sing-along chorus, it stirs some fans the wrong way — especially since it has gone on to become Bad Religion's most famous number, despite not being ideally typical of their sound (sort of like Blon­die with ʽHeart Of Glassʼ, which still makes many people erroneously remember them as a disco band). Still, the riffs are anything but pop, and the chorus is not just simplistically catchy, but rings out loud and proud with Bad Religion's usual spirit.

Besides, goddammit, those catchy lyrics are wond'rously prophetic: "'Cause I'm a 21st century digital boy / I don't know how to live but I got a lot of toys / My daddy's a lazy middle class intel­lectual / My mommy's on valium, so ineffectual" may have already been partially true in 1990, when it was written, but now that the 21st century is finally here, the song is ten times as relevant as it used to be. The epitome of irony is that, during the fade-out, Graffin hums a cross-reference from King Crimson's ʽ21st Century Schizoid Manʼ — "cat's food, iron claw, neuro-surgeons screamed for more, innocents raped with napalm fire" — perhaps hinting at just how silly these visions of World War III, nuclear apocalypses, ultra-fascist dictatures etc. have turned out to be next to the real danger to society, eh?..

Of the other songs, which mostly just soldier on and on in nearly identical uniforms, the title track, with its shrill seven-note riff and easily imprintable sloganeering ("against the grain, that's where I'll stay") is a clear standout, as is ʽModern Manʼ (who happens to be a "pathetic example of earth's organic heritage", and try singing that in two and a half seconds without losing the mes­sage), and ʽThe Positive Aspect Of Negative Thinkingʼ — typing in its title takes almost as much time for the slow-moving typist as it runs (0:57), but it still manages to incorporate a «boogie» and a «grindcore» section and a large political, philosophical, and even linguistic ("syntactic is our elegance"?) manifesto.

The whole package is longer than No Control (seventeen tracks in all), but with all these ecsta­tic, anger-choked guitars, tiny injections of poppiness, and even cleverer slogans than before, may be even easier to tolerate and assimilate for the non-hardcore customer in the hardcore store. Hence, another thumbs up — yes, there would be a moment when Graffin and co. would finally start a downhill slide, but Against The Grain still finds them dashing along a straight line.

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Bad Religion: No Control

BAD RELIGION: NO CONTROL (1989)

1) Change Of Ideas; 2) Big Bang; 3) No Control; 4) Sometimes I Feel Like; 5) Automatic Man; 6) I Want To Conquer The World; 7) Sanity; 8) Henchman; 9) It Must Feel Pretty Appealing; 10) You; 11) Progress; 12) I Want Something More; 13) Anxiety; 14) Billy; 15) The World Won't Stop.

As awkward as it is to say, No Control is only the very first Bad Religion album in the Bad Reli­gion catalog that sounds exactly like its predecessor — meaning, apparently, that for the first time in their life Bad Religion hit upon a formula that they really, really liked. Or maybe they were just so proud that Suffer managed to sell a few thousand copies, it seemed like a good idea to try and do the same thing all over again. Surprisingly, it worked, and the next album already sold a few dozen thousand copies — an amazingly high record for a record that places its listener in be­tween packs of pummeling, breakneck speed punk riffs and lyrics that can be quali­fied as poetic adaptations of everything from existentialism to neo-Marxism for the middle school level.

There is no way that a review of a 25-minute long album that sounds exactly like its 35-minute long predecessor could be longer than a few paragraphs, so here are just a few scattered observa­tions on individual songs:

— ʽI Want Something Moreʼ runs for a record-short 0:47, of which the last eight seconds are brilliantly shaped into a one-breath coda. All of B.R.'s songs are «anthems», one way or another, but this one takes the cake as the greatest use of laconicity on a B.R. record, period;

— ʽSometimes I Feel Like...ʼ leaves the last slot in its title conspicuously open, to be occupied within the song itself by the album's only straightforward moment of musical gimmickry, and it does seem possible that Graffin sometimes feels himself like that, because, heck, don't we all?;

— ʽSanityʼ and the beginning of ʽProgressʼ slow down the tempo (although the latter quickly picks it up again) for no reason in particular, but the Gurewitz-Hetson guitar tone retains its nasty crunch regardless of the number of beats per second;

— ʽThe World Won't Stopʼ has the only example of the adverb phylogenetically that I can think of in a lyrical piece — and it is not that easy to pronounce it at that kind of speed, mind you. The song itself, melody-wise, is as non-descript as they come, but "Your achievements are unsurpas­sed / You are highly-ordered mass / But you can bet your ass / Your free energy will dissipate / Two billion years thus far / Now mister here you are / An element in a sea of enthalpic organic compounds" — boy, that's gotta count for something. We sure have come a long way here from "And I wanna move the town to the Clash city rocker, you need a little jump of electrical sho­cker", not to mention "beat on the brat with a baseball bat" — each of these lyrical approaches has its value and its effects, but Graffin's professorial verbosity seems unprecedented, regardless of whether one likes it or not.

Most importantly, No Control rocks with the exact same frenzy and conviction as Suffer. Pena­lizing it for recycling the already worn-out riffs would be silly — the whole idea here is to ask themselves the question: «Gee, that worked so well, can we do it again, but faster, tougher, even more focused and compact?..» and answer in the positive. Unoriginal, yes, but sometimes all you need is a little inspiration, a little fire, a little intelligence, and (last, but not least) a reasonably short running time, and you got yourself a certified thumbs up.

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