Artist: Against Me!
Album: Transgender Dysphoria Blues
Source: https://soundcloud.com/xtramilerecordings/sets/against-me-transgender/
Pre-listening Notes: I am giving in to the hype here. In case you live under a rock or just somehow managed to miss the hundreds of new articles, commentary posts, or Facebook posts both in support and the opposite of support towards Laura Jane Grace, I'll elaborate. Against Me! is a Florida punk band that started in the mid to late 90's. They released a few critically acclaimed albums and then in 2012, singer, songwriter, and only original member of the band, Tom Gabel, announced he was transgendered and would being his transition to living as a woman. Fast forward to today and the band is putting out their first major release since this announcement. Since that time, the band added Atom Willard, previously of my favorite rock and roll band, Rocket From The Crypt, as their drummer. They also recruited Fat Mike to play bass, although they have since added a guy from the (International) Noise Conspiracy. I've only really listened to a few songs here and there of theirs previously, so I know what to expect up to a point, but I'm sure they have matured as a band since the early days when they were on No Idea Records. So here goes!
Initial Reaction: First thing is the music is drastically more polished and the recording is much improved over anything I have heard before. This first song is pretty awesome musically. Vocally, Laura's voice is still as catchy as I remember and not that drastically different, maybe a little more clean than that first album. Lyrically it seems like this is going to deal with the last 2 years of her life, which is not a bad thing in any way.
Random Thoughts: I am liking this more than I anticipated. It's really catchy. Even in the songs I've heard before, they were never a straight up punk band, but this so far has really been more on the punk influenced alt-rock album. Again, that's not a complaint. Unconditional Love has a pirate song feel to it. The drumming is great, as I anticipated. Okay, Drinking With the Jocks ups the punk (no pun) a little. Osama Bin Laden as the Crucified Christ so far is my favorite tune on here. Okay, this stream is apparently missing a song, good news is they released it as a single last year and it's out there on Spotify.
Final Reaction: Overall, it's a real short album, not even clocking in at half an hour long. Honestly, take the hype out of this album and it's still a pretty good album. I came in not really knowing what to expect and honestly I liked the hell out of this. I'd have to really go back to the last couple records to be able to tell anyone if the last 2 years has changed much, but based on what I know from their early stuff and where I expect they went over the years, I have a feeling this is basically just an Against Me! record and I'm totally fine with that.
Final Grade: 8.0/10
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