Against Me!

White Crosses

You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time -- Abraham Lincoln


Truer words have never been applied to Against Me!. The band has seemingly established that for every album that’s released in the wake of Reinventing Axl Rose, there is an immediate backlash. Said backlash is then rescinded in the release of the next album when the most vocal opponents of the album have finally focused their rage on the newest release and allowed the previous album to speak on its own merits. For example: As the Eternal Cowboy caught worlds of shit not only for being released on Fat Wreck Chords, but for not espousing Gabel’s thoughts on anarchy as much as Reinventing Axl Rose. However, the second Searching for a Former Clarity was released, AtEC was considered the modern classic it is. The cycle continued with New Wave in a big, bad way, and I can only imagine the trend will continue to expand and prove me right. I’ve long wondered how a band can put up with such levels of shit and not go insane, especially when the same contingent bitching eventually accepts the album as part of the canon. For a while, it seemed that lead man Tom Gabel would only allude to the situation, as seen in the sniping criticism in tracks like “Mediocrity Gets You Pears”, but that was just not enough for me. Thankfully, Gabel’s started reading my mind and has finally written the “Fuck You” album I’ve been waiting for, and its name is White Crosses.


What’s made Gabel an increasingly great songwriter since the release of Reinventing Axl Rose is his willingness to see that life isn’t ever in black and white. He most certainly did NOT see the world that way around the time of RAR, but life’s got a funny way of changing just when we think we have everything figured out. No further proof is needed outside of the first single “I Was a Teenage Anarchist”. In some ways, this is the song the band has been building towards for at least three albums. It’s an incredibly ballsy song for the band to put out as a single, but especially so when one takes the song’s content into consideration. I mean, this is a song that dissociates the band from a scene that not only spawned them, but gave them such a tight bond with their original audience - Not many people could get away with that, and I'm not sure the band will get away with it, even though it's a great song. It's a fantastic rebound into the almost overly-verbose stream of consciousness style of Gabel’s writing that was largely absent on New Wave, but it also defines what prevents the album from being truly great.

Perhaps the band was trying to make a meta-statement against the overly sensitive backlash mongers, perhaps they want to have a sound that will fill arenas, but the cold hard fact is that the overproduction on White Crosses hobbles the album irreparably. The blame for this almost certainly falls on producer Butch Vig, who has finally completed taking a belt sander to any of the band's ragged energy. I don't want to give the impression that the songs are lifeless slogs of arena rock, but that indignant crackle that's always been the pulse beneath the songs is all but gone. It shows its head late in the album on "Rapid Decompression", but this is a far more measured Against Me!. In some ways, this newer sound mimics the lyrics of Gabel learning to accept aging and live life for himself rather than for others, but upon listening to these songs I can't help but hear the demoes that almost certainly exist. I firmly believe that if the band were to tear away the endless excess layers of syrupy guitar effects and the infinitely multi-tracked army of Gabels that we'd have a real corker of an album.


Thankfully, underneath those extraneous effects lies one hell of a tightly written album. The opening salvo of the title track, "I Was a Teenage Anarchist", and "Because of the Shame" is one of the great AM! one-two-three combos of all time. Rather than take the minimalist, sputtering lyricism that helped drive the wedge between the fans and New Wave, Gabel's gone back to detailing the minutiae of modern life. "White Crosses", for example, seems as if it was written while driving through his Floridian hometown, and "I Was a Teenage Anarchist" is quite possibly the single most personal song he's ever written while still being an explanation of where he is in life now. The fact that he's able to explain how he feels anarchic principles have been co-opted into yet another set of rules people must follow in a three and a half minute song is boggling. Another highlight is the mournful "Because of the Shame", a song so Springsteen-y that Brian Fallon himself must be green with envy. That streak of classic rock runs throughout the album, also becoming most noticeable on the album's best song "High Pressure Low", mixing Gabel's inimitable political pissiness with a Tom Petty-leaning uptempo groove. Some folks are going to be decidedly pissed about the band straying farther and farther away from the ragged folk-punk that's define the band for so long. Admittedly, my first listen to this album was like biting into tinfoil - If you thought New Wave sounded wildly different from the "old" sound, you just may miscarry when you hear White Crosses for the first time. But if you're willing to assume Against Me! knows what they're doing, I think you'll like this one. Gabel's rarely, if ever, been this tight of a songwriter, and the songs are almost universally catchy (Save for the almost unlistenable "We're Breaking Up"). Against Me! has always been about rebelling - rebelling against the establishment, rebelling against the world, and now, rebelling against the fans without actually rebelling against those that will give them a fair chance. If you're looking for the next Reinventing Axl Rose, you're going to be violently disappointed. If you're looking for another New Wave, you're going to be disappointed. But, if you're like me and want to hear what in the world Against Me! has done next, give White Crosses a listen.

Grade: B

Track Listing:

1. White Crosses
2. I Was a Teenage Anarchist
3. Because of the Shame
4. Suffocation
5. We're Breaking Up
6. High Pressure Low
7. Ache With Me
8. Spanish Moss
9. Rapid Decompression
10. Bamboo Bones