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Bad Religion :: "New Dark Ages"From New Maps Of Hell (Epitaph; 2007)
Say what you will about the Bush administration, but it's made for some quality Bad Religion records. Civil Liberties are being eroded at an alarming rate in the name of an unjust war with no end in sight, and Greg Graffin and Brett Gurewitz haven't had this much to kvetch about since the Reagan years.
"New Dark Ages" is probably the catchiest song on New Maps of Hell, the third good Bad Religion album in a row since Mr. Brett rejoined the band. The song doesn't exactly do anything that 3,000 Bad Religion songs haven't already; frantic drumming, full band choruses of oozing "aahs", and the requisite Graffin-speak about how we're all seriously fucked ("Now come ye children one and all / Let's heed Ezekiel's call / And bide until the word is good and ripe / And get plucked clean out of sight!"). But the doomsday sentiment has hardly seemed more prescient, aided by a heavier mix than these guys have had in awhile, courtesy of veteran metal producer "Evil" Joe Baresi.
Most of Maps wisely follows in similar suit, favoring the loud and fast over the ill-fated ventures into pop and slow tempos that dominated Bad Religion's woeful late '90s output (No Substance [1998] indeed). And if its undisputed that in terms of innovation, Bad Religion are essentially So-Cal hardcore's answer to AC/DC, they still attack their genre with more conviction than nearly every Warped tour acolyte half their age.
David M. Goldstein :: 3 August 2007 |
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