With the release of Endgame, Rise Against commemorates it's ninth year as a band and, while that time has been marked by lineup changes, label changes and other alterations in the band's design and focus, this year marks the first time significant changes have happened outside the band which may actually affect how it functions. Even making such an argument might sound far-fetched, but think about it – to this point, this most politically-charged of punk bands has had the same target since it started (George W. Bush took office at around the same time Rise Against began to really get legs under it) which has made for reasonably easy writing as the stacks of headlines, questionable events and atrocities only got taller. For over half a decade, the brain damaged head of the free world kept making (bad) news and Rise Against kept chronicling and criticizing it but, now, the game has changed. The common enemy has been defeated and the good guys (The Democrats) really did win – so what now? What's a band that has been focused so intently on civil unrest for the term of its' career to date supposed to do that equilibrium is beginning to re-establish itself? Rise Against singer Tim McIlrath isn't so proud as to not be asking the exact same question as Endgame opens (a blitz of inquisitions like, “Are there no fighters left here anymore… Are we the generation we've been waiting for… [and] Do you still believe in all the things you stood by before?” characterize “Architects”) but, even before that opening track has run its' course, it's clear to see that the band has found a new stance and position: the Bush administration was only the beginning and, on Endgame, Rise Against starts looking at larger problems. Such a move isn't terribly uncommon for a band in Rise Against's position but, unlike U2 – who has regularly wrapped its' subjects in contrived artifice before committing them to tape – this band lays each of its' subjects out as plainly as possible to make sure no one misses the point.
After “Architects” sets all of that heaviness out in just three minutes and forty-two seconds, Rise Against begins branching out further to examine the world further with surprisingly solid results. On “Satellite,” the band falls in line against domestic inequality (“We are the orphans of the American dream”), “Help Is On The Way” looks at the pitiful lack of support offered to New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina (“Crescent City” is the nickname of New Orleans) and ties that to the calamity of the Deepwater oil spill (“Five thousand feet below/as black smoke engulfs the sky, the ocean floor explodes”) before the band indicts the rest of those left in power for the hypocrisy they've been guilty of when they left those who elected them in the cold on “Disparity By Design.” Elsewhere, there is catharsis expressed instead of dry-eyed chronicling (check “Midnight Hands”) which is far more heartening than the same sort of “world events” songs produced by other bands (exception being “Survivor Guilt,” which is overwrought in any language). While all of that is going on lyrically, the band doesn't let itself stagnate musically either; as it did on Appeal To Reason, Rise Against stretches beyond the four-chord hardcore anthems that got the band noticed in the first place to include elements of hard rock, alternative and mainstream, “biggest-band-in-the-world” theatrics with fantastic results. The band once again nods to Black Flag (check “Broken Mirror”) which isn't surprising but, this time, the band does it in such a way that it implies growth as well as a commitment to staying the course all at once; here's Rise Against digs in and piles the metallic grit onto the proceedings, just as Rollins and company did in the twilight of their run, years ago. With that implication made though, one has to ask is Rise Against's days are numbered. As Endgame leads listeners out amid images of items (kerosene, most plainly) depleting but dirt and depression building up overtake the song, the question gains credence – but it's still unlikely. Rather, the greater possibility is that Rise Against has found a way to mature without using acoustic guitars to do it (tellingly, there is no reprise of “Swing Life Away” or “Hero Of War” here) to do it and sealed the first results of that discovery into a perfectly self-contained album. That's actually the best way to characterize Endgame; it is a standalone album that does nod to where Rise Against came from but, rather than try to tear a hole in time and try to stand outside it (which would allow them to creatively stall in a comfort zone), they're moving forward and making sure their listeners can't miss it.
Artist:
www.riseagainst.com/
www.myspace.com/riseagainst
www.facebook.com/riseagainst
www.twitter.com/#!/riseagainst
Album:
Endgame is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
