Bad Religion
The Dissent Of Man

THE REVIEW

September fourth, two thousand ten. That horned mob of old nostalgic younglings, with their drawn-out "In the end, Travis kicks ass". Their polished parting, dressed up for the occasion. Vans and families as if it were raining. Mohawked tourists at a first communion. How nice it is not to be like them. God, how they make (made) me sick, the blink one hundred eighty-two. Their dancehall punrock, their moon-map hardcore, twelve years ago attempted a first approach with yours truly. Luckily "The New America" came and I suddenly grew up.

Very different are the September dates circled on my calendar. They speak of appointments with History, of thirtieth anniversaries passed in silence, without fuss or gift sets. They speak of "The Dissent Of Man," number Fifteen. No premieres with women wrapped in gold, just yet another little disc. Simple. Beautiful. Sincere.

I can already hear the trolls breathing down my neck, "Yes, but it's not Suffer!"; "But do you really want to compare it to Against the Grain?". Please, let's leave Captain Obvious to Fabio Volo and the social networks. Because when you fire up the opening triptych you know full well that any reference to "No Control" is not purely coincidental and god Brian Baker flies high like a hawk, giving no quarter to the copy-paste solos of "The Gray Race". What an overdose. What phrasing with Mr. Hetson.

Slashes, slashes that, however, caress, velvet-like. Yes, because the mood of this number fifteen is kind of like this. There is no violence, not even in the (many, my god, very fast album) rides (just to be clear, it is a compliment). A sense of reunion wafts in the air, of sunsets. Of pats on the back. Of distant, unreachable, and perfect memories, in which Evil does not exist. Of nostalgia. There is plenty of it, yes, because when you delight in the beautiful "Only Rain", you cannot help but breathe in the melancholic and proud vitality of "I Want To Conquer The World", the polyphonies of "The Resist Stance" plunge us back into the alternative rock of "Recipe For Hate", "What It Is" pulses martially under the skin of "The Day The Earth Stalled". And it's a good thing. No, no room for reheated soups, Bad Religion do not plagiarize themselves. But they once again expertly blend, with Tarantino-like skill, their well-tested ingredients. The very ones that invented the Nineties of the West Coast. Because it is true that the five are a product of the Eighties, suspended between Agent Orange, Social Distortion, and Adolescents. Just as their two best works. But it is also true that with "Suffer" and "No Control" the Nineties of hcm had already begun. And perhaps already ended. Everything else is a nuance, a continuous fade out until the end of the Millennium. Bad Religion are the Nineties, no doubt. And "The Dissent Of Man" is a splendid time machine, an emotional and supersonic 1992.

 The record, as stated, opens in the name of speed, among daggers, damned beauties, and rain, lots of rain. Which mortifies and deludes. There is no room for the guitar grandiosity of "New Maps Of Hell", here the oozin aahs steal the scene. The guitar is indeed present, but bare in its naive essentiality. It finally retains all the edges, all the harshness of the "first take is good". Even the arrangement, therefore, is a continuous amhardcord (god, how ugly). The only poetic licenses are those granted to that beast Brooks Wackerman, god bless him, who, between jazz phrases and offbeats, insists on clarifying he is not Finestone pt. II. Sober and precise in the more sustained pieces, he resembles a bit of Sandin in his golden days, the one machine-gunning in the background of "A Perfect Government". But everyone makes their damn good figure. Because Gurewitz is always a little bit Kerouac and a little bit Palahniuk (and I would buy his book with my eyes closed) and Graffin, despite being as frigid as Eva Braun, always delivers screaming vocal lines. Without screaming, perfectly comfortable at 200 as at 90 bpm. Yes, because "The Dissent Of Man" leaves us murmuring, slowly, slipping away quietly. Mid-tempo tracks like "The Pride And The Pallor", "Where The Fun Is", and "I Won't Say Anything", however, are little masterpieces that show that punk rock doesn’t always use the fast lane ("No Substance", perhaps, was something more than a mere misstep).

I, however, would have unleashed the Circle Jerks who hold and govern Hetson for one last frontal assault, a final burnout of a bad boy. Damn, we are after all the kids of the black hole. Not academics.