Review: Against Me! – White Crosses
It’s easy to forget that Against Me! is an awesome rock band, mostly because Tom Gabel is an asshole. Or, rather, he seems like an asshole -- I’ve never met Mr. Gabel “IRL” (as the kids say) but he comes off like a reactionary, über-defensive prick in interviews and on his personal blog. And he’s really driven this whole backlash thing straight into the ground -- the second song on White Crosses, Against Me!’s second Butch Vig-produced record for Sire, is called “I Was A Teenage Anarchist” and lets rip with “Don’t you remember when you were young and you wanted to set the world on fire?” on its chorus. It’s the sound of Gabel getting on his knees and begging for people to get over the whole “anarchy thing.”
Well, maybe he should get over it. Nobody else cares except for the idiots who confuse “anarchy” with “utopia.” I certainly never loved Against Me! for their politics -- I loved them because Gabel wrote honest, searing tunes, and because the guys in his band played the stuff straight. I’ve been accused of being on a “ridiculous” quest to find “real rock ‘n’ roll,” but seriously, all the music on the radio sounds compressed and shitty, and most of the indie records that come out are too smug to drop the RAWK bomb. Against Me! have always just bashed it out and trusted that Gabel’s lyrics would sell the whole package.
But now comes White Crosses, which is being hyped with a lot of irresponsible talk about Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen. It really sounds like neither man’s work -- it’s too fast, and too shiny. I cranked this up in my car and it almost made my ears bleed; it sounds like a Killers record. I don’t think Butch Vig is the best guy to be manning the boards for this band. The punk numbers are fast and punchy (“Rapid Decompression” and the title track being the two best examples) but the big showstoppers suffer from an overabundance of polish and studio gimcrackery.
Also, the cops are perhaps a little too direct: I know all the great ones steal, but does Gabel have to steal from such obvious sources? The echoed guitars needling up texture in the back of “Spanish Moss” are basically identical to the Edge’s breakthrough riff on “I Will Follow” (although, as a sidenote, I’m somewhat delighted to hear a band cribbing from a period of U2′s history other than The Joshua Tree / Achtung Baby), and “Because Of The Shame” makes a ham-handed joke of its own “Bobby Jean” aspirations. (Don’t even get me started on the “How Soon Is Now?” riff that floats over the verses on “Suffocation.”) At one point I was like, “What is this, a fucking Muse record?” And then they started singing about smashing crosses again, so it was cool. But seriously.
No, Against Me! fare much better when they do their particular thing, which is the timeless thing of writing simple, honest, emotionally raw songs without any gimmicks. “We’re Breaking Up” is almost robotic in its cold analysis of a relationship’s faults, and mighty reassuring after the teen-love blunder of New Wave‘s “Bourne On The FM Waves Of The Heart.” (Although, why’s this guy writing breakup songs when he’s freshly married to Alkaline Trio’s super-hot merch girl?) “Ache With Me” fulfills the album’s ballad obligations, to pretty solid effect; I honestly could’ve done without it, but it’s not like I’m gonna sit here and cry about it, either. Obviously Against Me! want to grow up and be a barband, so they gotta have a few ballads in there. “I Was A Teenage Anarchist” will make you forgive Gabel if you were ever mad. Seriously, people that think Against Me! betrayed you: they didn’t. They’re like forty years old now.
Especially old is George Rebelo, of Hot Water Music fame, who has stepped in to replace Warren Oakes on drums. (Oakes opened up his own burrito stand and probably enjoys life 10x more now that he doesn’t have to hear Gabel whining all day long on the tour bus, #amirite?) There’s a soft spot in my heart for Hot Water Music, and Rebelo’s a good drummer, but it’s just too weird for me when guys from bands I used to like join bands that I currently like (see also: Johnny Marr hanging out with Modest Mouse). My only big complaint about White Crosses is that this doesn’t really sound like a good old band anymore; it mostly sounds like Gabel doing a solo project.
But, really, this is a good record. I’ll play this all summer long. If I was seventeen, this would be the bro-down record of the year. But it makes me wonder why the band still puts so much emphasis on the punk angle when Gabel’s heart is so clearly someplace else. He wants to be the new Boss, but he won’t get there by half-heartedly emulating the old one. Against Me! need to make a break at this point and do something totally different, because if their sound gets any softer they’re gonna have to drop that exclamation point.
Against Me!
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Haven’t heard the album yet so I cant speak on that, but this review is excellent.
Clearly you keep taking winking shots at shit I put on your facebook… am I the only person that reads this? Also: this record still sucks a week later.
Dude, everybody reads my stuff. How else will they know what to talk about at the water cooler?
Fucking tight review.
(read in Lefsetz-esque done)
I was listening to a DJ intro a song the other day while in my car driving to and from on the North Side of Chi-town, and my interests were piqued when I heard them say it was a fairly new band called “Saving Abel” I listened to a grand total of about 2 minutes of the song–to give it a fair shot which is very unlike me as you know, and sure enough, they sounded exactly like Breaking Benjamin, Stone Sour, Nickelback, Sick Puppies, and everyone other one of those shitty Creed ripoff bands.
I fucking hate the radio.
Saving Abel sucks. I hope you shot your radio, with a gun.
[...] you’re thinking: “Wasn’t Oswald just talking shit about this shit the other day when he reviewed White Crosses?” Yeah, I sure was. But a funny thing happened: I started to get really pumped [...]