Rise Against announce new album 'Nowhere Generation,' share song (pre-order it on ltd vinyl!)
BrooklynVegan has teamed with Rise Against on an exclusive, limited edition black/clear vinyl variant of their new album. Pre-order it here.
Last year, Chicago punk vets Rise Against returned with their first song in three years: the political, fired-up “Broken Dreams, Inc,” which was released on the soundtrack to DC Comics’ Dark Nights: Death Metal. When we asked frontman Tim McIlrath if the band had more new music on the way, he said, “let’s just say we haven’t spent this last year laying around,” and now it’s official: they spent the last year writing a new album.
The album — Rise Against’s ninth — is called Nowhere Generation, and it’s due June 4 via Loma Vista (their first for the label). It’s available to pre-order now on BrooklynVegan-exclusive, limited-edition “inky black on clear” 140g vinyl in our store. This variant is limited to 600 copies, so act quick!
The new album finds them reuniting with longtime producers Bill Stevenson (Black Flag, Descendents) and Jason Livermore, with help from Andrew Berlin and Chris Beeble too. “Bill is our not-so-secret weapon,” says bassist Joe Principe. “He really has helped shape the band; he gets what we want to do and will go with us when we think outside the box. He’s the perfect producer for the style of music we play because he has an insane pop sensibility and the hardcore side to him as well.”
The album includes “Broken Dreams, Inc,” as well as the just-released title track. Like the former, the new song is classic Rise Against; it owes as much to singer/songwriter heartland rock as it does to punk, and it’s soaring and anthemic without sacrificing any of the band’s grit. And like “Broken Dreams, Inc,” it’s as catchy as it is purposeful, with a social/political message that Tim says permeates the whole album.
“Today there is the promise of the American Dream, and then there is the reality of the American Dream,” Tim says. “America’s ‘historical norm’ that the next generation will be better off than the one that came before has been diminished by an era of mass social, economic, and political instability and a sell-out of the Middle Class. The brass ring that was promised by hard work and dedication no longer exists for everyone. When the privileged climb the ladder of success and then burn it from the top, disruption becomes the only answer.”
Joe adds, “When I was growing up, I listened to bands like 7 Seconds, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, and Bad Religion. All of those bands’ music had a sense of hope with the world, a truly positive global view of what life can be. From the beginning, we’ve wanted Rise Against to have that same positivity, to have our music be an inspiration for people to bring about change in their own lives, they just have to put forth the effort and speak up.”
“Nowhere Generation” comes with a video that follows the same stark, black-and-white color scheme as the album art, on which the band worked with acclaimed artist Brian Roettinger (who’s handled art direction and design for Jay-Z, Beach House, No Age, Liars, and several others). Check it out below.
HEALTH also recently remixed “Broken Dreams, Inc” and you can hear that below too.
The new video launched along with this spoken word piece from Tim, reflecting on the ways our world was turned upside down in 2020 and giving in-depth background on the inspiration behind this album and its title:
Tracklist
1. The Numbers
2. Sudden Urge
3. Nowhere Generation
4. Talking to Ourselves
5. Broken Dreams, Inc.
6. Forfeit
7. Monarch
8. Sounds Like
9. Sooner or Later
10. Middle of a Dream
11. Rules of Play
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Pre-order the limited black/clear vinyl variant of Nowhere Generation here.
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18 Essential Early 2000s Melodic Punk & Hardcore Albums
Kid Dynamite – Shorter, Faster, Louder (2000)
Alkaline Trio – Maybe I’ll Catch Fire (2000)
Rancid – Rancid (2000)
AFI – The Art of Drowning (2000)
Black Sails is usually the AFI album that's considered "the one that's cool to like," and Sing the Sorrow is usually the one that's considered the biggest musical and cultural achievement. Coming right in between them, The Art of Drowning is loved by longtime fans but might get overlooked by casual listeners or newcomers for not having much of a defining narrative beyond "the one after Black Sails" or "the one with 'The Days of the Phoenix.'" "Days of the Phoenix" is a milestone in AFI's career; it's the song that most predicted the sound of Sing the Sorrow, helped gain the band major label interest, and it's the one Nitro Records era song you're guaranteed to hear at an AFI show today. No matter how many times I hear that song, it never ceases to feel like the first time. It's a true classic, but it shouldn't overshadow the rest of The Art of Drowning, which is a much clearer progression from Black Sails than it sometimes gets credit for being.
"Days of the Phoenix" is also the one song on The Art of Drowning where AFI realize that if they settle into a mid-tempo alternative rock pace, they sound like they could be the biggest band in the world (and they'd do this for most of their career afterwards), but it's far from the only song on the album with masterful songwriting. Much more so than on Black Sails, Davey shows off his singing voice on The Art of Drowning, and the album’s got hooks for days -- not just from Davey but also from all the gang vocals and group whoa-ohs that are just about as perfect here as they would be on Sing the Sorrow. It'd probably be easier to list the songs that don't have cathartic choruses, but here are some of the ones that very much do: "Sacrifice Theory," "The Nephilim," "A Story At Three," "Catch A Hot One," "Wester." All of those are played at Misfits speed, but they come with blissful melodicism that proved AFI were just too good to remain in the punk underground for much longer. It's pop and punk without being "pop punk" -- it's still too dark and heavy for that -- and its combination of darkness, intensity, and remarkable melodies still feels innovative twenty years later. [Read more in our AFI album guide.]
The Movielife – This Time Next Year (2000)
Propagandhi – Today’s Empires, Tomorrow’s Ashes (2001)
Anti-Flag – Underground Network (2001)
The Bouncing Souls – How I Spent My Summer Vacation (2001)
Strike Anywhere – Change Is A Sound (2001)
The Lawrence Arms – Apathy and Exhaustion (2002)
Against Me! – Reinventing Axl Rose (2002)
Dillinger Four – Situationist Comedy (2002)
Hot Water Music – Caution (2002)
Rise Against – Revolutions Per Minute (2003)
The Distillers – Coral Fang (2003)
Bad Religion – The Empire Strikes First (2004)
Bad Religion never really went anywhere so don't call it a comeback, but after two less-well-received major label albums without original guitarist/songwriter Brett Gurewitz, Brett rejoined the band in 2001, the band re-signed to his label Epitaph Records, they welcomed the insanely hard-hitting new drummer Brooks Wackerman (previously of Suicidal Tendencies, currently of Avenged Sevenfold, among many other projects), and they released the excellent 2002 album The Process of Belief. It rivals their classic late '80s/early '90s run and it's home to songs that are still live staples and fan favorites today. It can't be easy to follow up a big comeback like The Process of Belief, but Bad Religion did it by getting harder and faster than ever on The Empire Strikes First. With the metal chops of Brooks Wackerman behind the kit, Bad Religion could now write menacing songs like "Sinister Rouge," which seems to answer the question: "what if Slayer were a pop punk band?"
Pop punk as we know it wouldn't exist without Bad Religion, whose 1988 LP Suffer was one of the '80s punk albums that shaped the '90s pop punk boom, and when Green Day and The Offspring were bringing punk to the masses with 1994's Dookie and Smash, Bad Religion were right there with 'em with their popular 1994 major label debut Stranger than Fiction. But a decade later, mainstream pop punk was very bubblegummy and Bad Religion went in a more aggressive direction, all while retaining the melodies, harmonies, and whoah-ohs that made people fall in love with Suffer. Like The Process of Belief, The Empire Strikes First is home to some of the band's most classic songs, and that's no small feat for an album released by a punk band who were then 24 years into their career (now 40). Coming at the height of George W. Bush backlash and the Iraq War, The Empire Strikes First tackled the capitalist greed that accompanies war ("Let Them Eat War"), religious conservatives ("God's Love"), California wildfires ("Los Angeles Is Burning"), and other then- (and now-) relevant topics that made The Empire Strikes First rank among the most incisive Bush-era protest music. It sounds lyrically urgent and musically thrilling in the Trump era too, and here's to hoping one day it only sounds the latter.