Archive for the ‘Rise Against’ Category
Rise Against – Appeal To Reason review
I have mixed feelings about this album. Appeal to Reason does live up to the hype—I’d say it’s one of the most hyped albums of the year so far—yet it’s still somehow not quite as strong as I expected.
What’s good about it is the songs and the performances. Opening track “Collapse (Post-Amerika)” sounds like a call to arms, first single “Re-Education (Through Labor)” is almost as catchy and inspiring as anything in the band’s catalogue, and “Dirt Whispered” reminds me of some of the best songs on Rise Against’s first two albums. “Hero of War” is a quiet, acoustic song that draws attention to the lyrics, which are topical and unpretentious.
As with every Rise Against album, most songs are melodic punk/hardcore with some harmonies, group vocals, and catchy choruses. Really, I liked every one of these songs on first listen.
I think that two things hold this album back from being a fantastic release. First is the production. Everything on the disc seems to come through at the same volume as everything else. The best way I can describe it is to say that it’s like they recorded each instrument and each voice with all the dials turned to ten. The result is that it all sounds loud, which is fine, but the consistency is a drawback. You can hear the difference between a single guitar playing a muted riff over bass and sparse drums and the whole band rocking hard, but there is not nearly as much dynamic between the two parts as there should be. “Whereabouts Unknown” is a good example of this fact, as it features a lot of shifts and different segments, but it’s not as effective as it could be because the track sounds like it’s blasting out of your speakers from beginning to end.
My other not so positive observation is that as good as Appeal to Reason is, there’s nothing very surprising about it. The band is great at what they do, so they keep doing it. The formula works, and I’m glad that such a good band is so popular, but I think that in the back of my mind I was sort of hoping that there would be one or two songs that came out of left field on this release. Thinking about “Hero of War” and “Swing Life Away” (the latter from Siren Songs of the Counter Culture), I think that maybe an acoustic Rise Against album might be interesting. Anyway, the bottom line is that if you’re a fan of Rise Against’s past albums, or you like any of the songs that you’ve heard from Appeal to Reason, you won’t be disappointed in this album.
Buy this
album
Whereabouts Unknown by Rise Against
