Anti-Flag - The Bright Lights Of America

RCA Records 2008

5.5/10

Best Track: "No Warning"

Worst Track: "Modern Rome is Burning"

The finest example of modern anarchist pop-punk is back making their standard anti-fascist noise. Once again, Anti-Flag lift the banner of left-wing ideology with their latest album The Bright Lights of America. Bright Lights is the group’s eighth full-length studio release and their second on RCA, with 2006’s For Blood and Empire marking their debut.

Musically, this album sounds like…well…it sounds like Anti-Flag. It’s the same fist-pumping and mosh-inspiring pop-punk that the group has been playing since 1988. That’s right, all you Warped Tour kiddies. This band has been around at least as long as you. Deal with it.

There is no true musical expansion on here. The music is the same as their past three releases. Not that there’s any incentive to change. The same three chords played over the same vocals always worked for them. Besides, punk rock fans have a hard time dealing with change. Sure, producer Tony Visconti tries to push the group into a mainstream direction, but it just isn’t there for them. Anti-Flag push the songs into the four-minute range, but the added length just dilutes the experience. The music loses its sense of urgency and sometimes falls flat.

Instead of devoting themselves to screaming about Bush and the Iraq War, Anti-Flag made a push to be lyrical visionaries again. Sure, there are still the standard doom-and-gloom tracks like “The Modern Rome is Burning.” But, generally speaking, Anti-Flag sets its lyrical sights on religious zealots and neo-conservatism in general. It’s refreshing. A band can only scream “Stop the War!” for so long before it becomes nothing more than a T-shirt slogan.

There is one musical variance on here from the typical Anti-Flag sound. It’s on the closing “Tar and Sagebrush,” which is sonically brutal, but is the funniest country parody song you’ll ever hear.

In life there are only three certainties: death, taxes and Anti-Flag singing about something wrong with the world with the same three chords. Bright Lights is a good piece of political punk, but Anti-Flag is sonically treading water.

- Garrett Lyons

Anti-Flag - No Warning

Here's a bonus track:

Anti-Flag with The Donots - Protest Song