Hmm..
I'm sure this band have a large enough fanbase, I really am. I bet there's a ton of kids that love Rise Against (should that be xRxAx maybe?) and will refuse to hear anything bad about their music. However, as an outsider, I'm afraid I'm going to upset hardcore fans.
I listened to this record a lot. I did my best to take in each, 180bpm drumbeat, each yell-along, each scream containing 100% real anger, each downtuned guitar, and each frantically palm muted guitar, i really did. I liked some of what I heard, rarely do I hear a record where I cannot find at least something good to say about it (The Locust being so far the only exception to this).
The song "Last Chance Blueprint" is probably one of my favourites on this record, beginning with a weird movie sample, which I think is a pre-requisite on a lot of records today. It seems to deviate from xRxAx song blueprint (no pun intended) of constant, fast drumbeats and deep guitars, which gets really old really fast.
I actually challenged an xRxAx fan online, asking him how to defend the statement that every song sounds the same, just about. His response was that the lyrics are what you learn to distinguish between the songs. With respect to him (well, okay, i don't really care about respect, he's a douche, but still..), the lyrics for this band aren't particularly imaginitive, instead, predictable, generic, and standard 'hardcore punk' style:
"Hit the ground and i'm still running"
"I'm so sick of all these people / but so scared to be alone"
I have to disagree and say that lyrical genius isn't a selling point for this band.
Kudos to them for including an 80's cover, though ("Any Way You Want It"), probably the most original song on this record, which ironically enough, wasn't written by xRxAx.
