Bad Religion
The Empire Strikes First

Complaining about it would be a crime, but we are jerks.

For many, the definitive consecration after the return home, “The Empire Strikes First,” excellently recorded – nothing to do with the painless guitars of “The Process of Belief” - is actually an ugly album.

Ugly ugly? No. It’s not a mess, but neither is it a good album. Nice? Yes, maybe.

I’d say ‘nice’ captures it perfectly. It exudes that feeling of gloom that is evoked by ridiculous things like “carbonara with seitan” or “Negramaro headliner.”

In 2004, indeed, there was a chorus of applause. Not a masterpiece, but, well, great stuff. Why so much bitterness from me? Mainly, because from Bad Religion I always expect the maximum, and a good work might objectively not be that great when compared to the stature of the creators. Tying with Rayo Vallecano can be a cool thing, but not if you’re Real Madrid. There must be something else, though, because I have loved all their efforts. This one, not so much.

The reason is simple: it’s a banal and hypocritical album. And, if you look closely, there are plenty of clues.

Just look at the title. We’re talking about an album on the Second Gulf War, mind you. And what does Greg do? He recycles Star Wars. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, indeed, but the USA/Dark Side parallel was born old. Moreover, “The Empire Strikes First” is an overused slogan in documentaries against US imperialism. In short, from someone who quotes James Hutton, I would have expected a bit more inventiveness.

Another sore point: artwork. Stylistically impeccable, true. The problem is the cover subject, dripping with originality akin to the “Game of the Mouse” from UnoMattina: it clearly depicts O’Brien, the sullen antagonist of the Orwellian masterpiece, in Room 101.

I say: even a skull with a low neuron density can associate “Ugly, bad imperialist state” with “Orwell Oceania Two Minutes of Hate.” “1984” is a fundamental text that everyone should read, but isn’t the Bush Junior/Big Brother link a tad predictable? Just a bit, eh. The mind runs to the original, poignant lyricism of “Fertile Crescent,” the Cradle of Humanity staging its death: the First Gulf War. It was 1992. Many years have indeed passed.

The banality of “The Empire Strikes First,” it must be said, is also determined by the novelty it represents in terms of writing: it is our first album on a topic of pressing current affairs, therefore with well-defined (geographical and temporal) limits.

Bad Religion has always been good at playing on philosophical speculation, personal introspection, and ultimate questions. Political forays, moreover, have always been incidental, mere pretexts to ignite the mind on the paroxysmal aberrations of the contemporary age.

The discomfort is evident in the lyrics: there's the usual self-satisfied stylistic refinement, but there’s a lack of powerful and incisive rhetoric: “God’s Love” and “Atheist Peace” lazily dwell on subjects better explored in the past (we are eons away from the secular disillusionment of “The Answer”); “Let Them Eat War” – stumbling over macho hip hop suggestions – mimics the trite slogan of Marie Antoinette; the title track, then, is a political crib sheet from the bar with Orwellian catchphrases (“We stumbled once in ‘nam … Yeah, you deserve 2 Minutes Hate”).

Also the arrangement, in turn, often seems uninspired: the martial spelling of “The Empire Strikes First” sounds more Rammstein than Bad Religion, the beautiful Orwellian portrayal of “Boot Stamping on a Human Face Forever” is undermined by inexplicable radio ambitions (just consider the colorless chorus); “The Quickening,” simply, is a song that never explodes, stretching things out.

Because this is precisely the most serious problem: the embarrassing number of fillers. The heavyweights are there, of course. Failing to recognize the attacking class of “Sinister Rouge” or the melodic charm of “Social Suicide” would be shortsighted. “All there Is,” musically very appreciable, is perhaps the manifesto of Gurewitz’s atheist lyricism, not to mention that splendid suite that is “To Another Abyss”. Excellent craftsmanship, nothing to say. But it all ends here, overshadowed by embarrassingly anonymous rock exercises.

The censors aren’t finished. Unfortunately, but an album (especially if labeled punk) must primarily be the vehicle of a message. A message of rupture and protest, ready to denounce prevailing customs and established authorities. It doesn’t need to be a hundred percent sincere, that would be utopian. You only have one set of 20s in your life. It is enough for it to be credible, prodding the conscience of the consuming youth.

Here, then, Bad Religion, you can't release an album with such a rebellious and provocative name only to tell RockSound, in the dedicated interview, that you “hope for a Kerry victory in the White House.”

I mean, you, the Kids of the Black Hole, the Rodotà of the power chords, are flirting with the most D'Alema-like of Yankees? Does it turn you on dreaming of the teodem intrigues of the well-educated lawyer in political science (and that’s it)?

Come on, you make an album against US imperialist policies and tell me to vote for someone who, the pride of centrism, supported the intervention in Iraq? But you should have shouted at me to vote Nader, cut me a “Holiday in Fallujah,” and told me that Kerry was the reincarnated Jerry Brown, not “we hope”! You hope what, hell.

Instead, you push the kids to vote for the early Veltronian centrism under the aegis of moderation and the flabbiest compromise. Uprooting “The Empire Strikes First” from any credible foundation. Montanelli, in comparison, was a Viet Cong. And then he pinched his nose.

It’s unfortunate, but with “The Empire” you showed what you truly are: rich, accomplished forty-year-olds, thinking about their own backyard, holding back to not be caught off guard by Possanzini on the counterattack. Certainly, this is often inevitable: but the stage requires a bit of fake youth, especially from those who, in 1982, shouted “Voice of God Is Government.”

But the icing on the cake is this, the masterpiece sealing the 2004 Bad Religion hypocrisy. Reverberating, ça va sans dire, on “The Empire Strikes First.”

Rock Against Bush.

I mean, the praiseworthy (sly?) initiative of Fat Mike: recruiting a bunch of self-proclaimed committed artists to tell Bush Jr. that he’s a son of a bitch. For lots of lovely bucks, of course, until now. The game of roles demands it.

Two records are released, vol. I and II, full of illustrious names (Bad Religion contributes with "Let Them Eat War"). But there are some big absentees.

Exactly: them, the Propagandhi.

Very strange: Chris Hannah not swinging at the fattest and easiest republican pinata? How come? Did he decline the invitation?

No way: Fatty recruits, they propose a revamped “Bullshit Politicians” for the occasion. It abounds with fierce tirades against the lobbyist duopoly of Congress: both democrats and republicans are exposed for what they are down to their underwear. So is George Soros, the raiding tycoon, pioneer of offshore investment funds, puppet master of the arms market and pressure groups, as well as a substantial funder of Rock Against Bush.

Indeed, national Fatty asks for a revision: get the name Soros out of there, please. The Propagandhi, rightly, tell him to go screw himself, and vanish.

Here, this is yet another confirmation of the moral and political stature of the Fat Wreck owner: “anyone but Bush”, as long as everyone eats well (the motivations leading to the Canadian band’s self-exclusion are also quite laughable: besides the tirades at Soros, an unsuspected philanthropist, the fact that “Bullshit Politicians” was a song already published. Yeah, because “Baghdad” by Offspring and “That’s Progress” by Biafra were brand new, yessir!).

Bad Religion are certainly not the direct culprits of this disgrace: surely, however, they gave full support, aware of their authoritative role as leaders, to a project opposite to the values ​​promoted in their career. And this is a very heavy aggravating circumstance.

For these reasons, I don’t like “The Empire Strikes First,” an uninspired and overproduced work, released by bored radical chic people, now retired in the hills. Yet another effigy of messy compromise, of rhetoric bent to easy gain (how many albums of this kind did we endure in 2004?). A nice album that stinks. A Christian Democratic album. An album, horror!, MODERATE.

It’s not the unconditional surrender, but the tying game well played that kills consciences, dear Bad. How does that song of yours go? Bring the dissident from slumber…

Luckily 2007, with your redemption, will arrive soon.