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They Used To Be Teenage Anarchists

Against Me! start growing up, stop being the band they once were.

Against Me!

White Crosses

Released on Jun 08, 2010

It’s finally happened. Many die-hard Against Me! fans panicked when New Wave was released in 2007, and why wouldn’t they? One of the most beloved punk bands of their generation, AM! were moving up to a major label after writing an album about the evils of the recording industry (Searching For A Former Clarity) that many consider to be the best of their career. However, New Wave ended up being the perfect crossover. It respected their roots and the sound that had gained them a major following, while also adding polish, tinges of more straightforward alt-rock and even a duet with one half of Tegan & Sara.

By this measure, White Crosses is the album that fans were dreading, just on a delay. Very little of the folk-punk sound that AM! built a following on is present here. Very, very little. Frontman Tom Gabel’s trademark snarl is all but nonexistent, and the meatier sound of records like Clarity or 2003’s …As The Eternal Cowboy has been replaced by an accessible, sponsored-festival-ready rock sound. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; whereas New Wave didn’t really have a single (I’ll always maintain that “Thrash Unreal” is one of the darker rock singles released in the past few years), at least half of White Crosses is ready-made for a video and a crossover audience.

It’s not exactly shocking to see the band take this kind of a departure. Parts of New Wave had built to it, and they’ve always worn The Replacements on their sleeves as a major influence, so much so that they put out covers of “Here Comes a Regular” and “Bastards of Young” in the past. However, if that’s the band that Against Me! is wanting to become, they’ve got miles to go before they sleep. Despite the fact that AM! has almost always been a band about economy of tracks, there’s just too much filler here for a 10-track album. The title track is an ill-advised missing link between the two incarnations of the band, as it tries for the political vitrol of their early work without any of the feeling behind it. The fact that it closes the album only serves to magnify it as a major clunker.

This also speaks to the album’s biggest issue. It’s such a massive departure that not only will it alienate more of the old fan base, but new fans who enjoy this record will be pressed to like any of the band’s old material. Are tracks like “Bamboo Beans,” with its live-happily-in-the-moment message, or “We’re Breaking Up” going to garner fans? Certainly, particularly in the case of the latter, which is ready-made for a generation of 16-year-olds looking for a song to share. Some of the tracks are very well done; “Ache With Me” is an effective ballad in the vein of the older “Borne on the FM Waves” and “Suffocation” probably comes closer to sounding like old Against Me! than any other track on the record.

The most telling illustration of this disconnect hits with the album’s true closer, “I Was a Teenage Anarchist.” The title alone harkens back to the band’s classic “Baby, I’m an Anarchist,” but the two are like night and day. The only connecting thread is that all the passion that feels missing from a large portion of White Crosses can be found here. It’s also a nightmare scenario for all the punks that grew up touting Gabel as the last generation’s Bob Dylan, as he’s apparently given up the ghost. Hearing one of the great piss and vinegar voices of punk rock belt out “Do you remember when you were young/And you wanted to set the world on fire?” with all the past tense inherent in those lines is more than a bit soul-crushing. It’s not a crime for AM! to grow and change, but version 2.0 has a long way to go before they can manage any of the joie de vivre they had when they reinvented Axl Rose. 

Posted by Dominick Mayer on Jun 08, 2010 @ 10:22 pm

against me!, white crosses, review