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Rating: The relentless Monday survey has demoted the expression “shades of grey” to the last place, with a dignity coefficient of 0.53%. Worse than “trucco e parrucco” (0.59), “impiattare” (0.62) and “frappuccino” (0.68).
What to do to change its fortunes? Just throwing it out there. From cellulose to pavilions: let's all take back 1996 and some “shades of grey” with balls. Actually, gray. We are, after all, on the other side of the Atlantic.
A difficult gestation, that of the gray race. Everyone knows why: Brett Partitaiva Gurewitz says goodbye frowning and splits his time between rehab and invoices; The Ph.D. golden throat must prove he is cool and punk despite a dramatically low heroin average. There’s the question mark of Baker, a luxury backup, who declined the fat offer from R.E.M.: will he be able to integrate into the group? Or, at least, the needle in the arm? Finally, on the horizon loom the dark clouds of a major, already burdened with the publication of a too radio-friendly “Stranger than Fiction.”
In short, the big question is: given the travails of the formation and the Atlantic, will “The Gray Race” still sound punk?
The answer is yes. The gray race is a beautiful album which, although removed from under the aegis of mother Epitaph, knows truly unique moments. A definite step forward compared to the previous admirable work that, among guest appearances and big hit singles, seemed like the antechamber to armageddon.
Away with the “cheerful” arrangements of “Stranger than Fiction”: the atmosphere is leaden, gloomy, melancholic.
Grey, indeed.
Abrasive and lo-fi guitar work that, on more than one occasion, winks at “Suffer.”
And in Suffa the title track would have been just right because in its 126 seconds it lashes out with angry pride, knowing it hurts. A disillusioned and sad elegy. The theme is very current: man, intoxicated by emotional shades – of infinite “shades of gray” – mortifies his complexity in the aut aut of black/white.
- What is more dismal, indeed, than black and white? Mine was from Cosenza, met yesterday. He considered Sculli ‘a regret.’ No, I say, Sculli. El pibedelocri. Mavabbé -
The protean humanity is trivialized in the depressing language of the tools it manufactures. The binary code, the majority awards, sharing on social media (always seen as an end, never as a means), the optimistic and superficial enlightenment coding: frigid dichotomies that cannot appreciate the infinite projections of the creative intellect.
Fact: we’ve set up the world like a roulette. Red comes out, black comes out. Cynical, yet undeniably pragmatic. Effective, instinctive. Equal to animals, which attack or flee. Sleep or search for food. They are or are not in heat, but they don’t make love.
Hence the dilemma: to fulfill himself in his world, what must man do? Revel in the splendid inefficiency of his emotional spectrum or adopt a more cynical and instinctive attitude, reducing every complexity to an aseptic crossroads?
The Manichaean opposition of values and ideals is, in any case, the leitmotif of the entire work: from censorship to racism (“Them and Us”) to the exaltation of the free spirit that challenges the establishment (“A Walk”, “Punk Rock Song”), passing through the incommunicability of experiences (“Parallel” – reprise of “Best for You”), interested proselytism (“Come Join Us”) and the hypocrisy of those who always believe they can save the world (“Spirit Shine”, with evident references to the “brother christian whose actions speak too loud” of “I Want to Conquer the World”). Oppositions that, needless to say, are the eloquent aftermath of the deep rift that affected the band members.
The “tormented” genesis of the album also reveals a true double soul in the arrangements: the guitar abrasions offspring of surf-punk (“Ten in 2010”, “Nobody Listens”) soften in the intimacy of the lyrics and in the melancholic sweetness of the vocal lines (“Victory”, “Drunk Sincerity”), outlining Greg Graffin’s confidence with folk, sealed in “American Lesion” the following year.
But the deep emotionality does not denature the product. Brian Baker proves himself worthy of the role, bringing along Dag Nasty (read “The Gray Race” and think of “Can I Say”) and a bit of Minor Threat: he finalizes the rhythmic assists of the much-lamented Hetson (only note: perhaps solos a bit too similar, with the inevitable tail of octaves) and supports Graffin in the singing of the everyday apocalypse.
The supreme poet of Wisconsin made it even on his own: calm, always at ease, beyond good and evil, he writes yet another great page of his secular gospel. Moved and participatory nihilism, but also aware of its essence. The vanities of the world may mislead us, inflame us with its ideals, but we must not be ensnared by the drunken charms of the carneade of the moment: we are not immortal. Neither us, nor our ideas. Much less our promises. The entropic forces will push us into the abyss, lulled by the eternal peace of oblivion: everything – the ephemeral everydayness of grass, the millennial pride of the empire – must cease.
Yes, “Cease” in the lot is the star, the unexpected fantasist. It is a highly refined compendium of Bad Religion’s ethics and style.
The sum of all punk philosophy, it exalts in its guitar slashes and in the final epilepsy of the solos, before finally falling asleep, an antechamber of eternal chaos, leaving you with two ancestral questions:
- How much must someone hate themselves to record “Punk Rock Song” in German?
- Why did Brett found that crap of Daredevils? No, because the professor alone is good but then you find yourself moshing to things like “proclaim yourself an expert thanks to the detailed inferences of your divulgations.” But a “Fuck the system”? No, huh?
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 The Gray Race (02:06)
the framework of the world
is black and white
the infrastructure builders
flex their might
turning true emotion
into digital expression
one by one we all fall down
the gray race shrivels
trapped inside the world it creates
it's black and white
the perputual destructive
motion machine
began to chart a course
never before seen
turning raw compassion
into fields of plus and minus
one by one we all give in
the gray race shrivels
trapped inside the world it creates
it's black and white
I'd swear there were times when I was someone else
a person with determination and knowledge of the self
but you flattened me to rubble and now I can see that I'm
just a faded negative of the image I used to be
and that's our dilemma
03 A Walk (02:09)
I'm going for a walk
not the after dinner kind
I'm gonna use my hands
and I'm gonna use my mind
and who the hell are you to tell me what to do?
you can't even tie your own haggard shoes
your closet is a mess, and your backyard's falling down
and I have no grand ideas or intentions of sticking around
I'm gonna build a world
independent and exempt
all alone I'll be an empire
with no mortgage and no rent
and I don't need to live in your stinking zoo
you can't even feed the animals donated to you
your storage sheds are ramshackled, flies decorate the walls
and you expect me to die here in this shit filled tiny stall?
and I know you're watching! everything I do
call me threat to your children call me socially unglued
call me master of insanity, unable to relate
call me lazy, bane, and filthy
call me monstrous reprobate
I'm going for a walk and there's nothing you can do
'cuz I don't have to live like you
so I'm going for a walk
04 Parallel (03:24)
sleeping on a time bomb, staring into space
there's an ocean of unpleasantries we are not prepared to face
sitting on the fence post to watch the storm roll in
and terrified of the damage it will bring when it begins
it will begin
splintered dreams of unity (our lives are parallel)
so far from reality (our lives are parallel)
independent trajectories (our lives are parallel)
separate terms of equality (our lives are parallel)
our lives are parallel
is there no redemption? no common good?
is there nothing we can do for ourselves? or only what we should?
comes the hard admission of what we don't provide
goes the insistence on the ways and means that so divide
they so divide
side by side suffering loneliness (our lives are parallel)
phony collective progress (our lives are parallel)
accepting that it's all such a mess (our lives are parallel)
gesturing without hope of redress (our lives are parallel)
our lives are parallel
forging little plays of deception and pain
as we watch our foundation crumble away
staggering like birds against a hurricane
and trying all the while to stay out of each other's way
broken dreams of unity (our lives are parallel)
independant trajectories (our lives are parallel)
screaming out for understanding (our lives are parallel)
turning inward and suffering (our lives are parallel)
06 Empty Causes (02:51)
Everywhere you looked there was confusion, violence, drama and drugs
So many righteous revolutionaries spouting utopian love
Everyone shrouded in purple haze
Then one day they woke up from their dream state
They found themselves no more at peace than before older, meek, and conformed
Empty causes
A bluster for the soul, a fix for their mind
Empty causes
Cling to everything you find
Well, the shots rang out like popcorn and the Chief was hit and rushed out of sight
The mohawk-chain, leather brigade rejoiced maliciously on that night
Someone cried out "fuck the government"
His mates couldn't define what he meant
So no one gave him the time of day and the scene died away
Empty causes
A war for the body, an army in the mind
Empty causes
Losing steam as time goes by
Could it be that everybody selfishly desires their own personal retinue
And that causes are just manifestations of too much time and far to little to do
Let's go
Empty causes
Direction for the soul, conviction for the mind
Empty causes
Cling to all, everything you find
Empty causes
A war for the body, an army in the mind
Empty causes
You've got yours and I've got mine
All right
09 Spirit Shine (02:11)
shed a tear for the criminal, give him something to believe
light a fire for the miserable, give the darkness some meaning
closed wounds harbor pestilence, when you lick them from within
charity has a redolence chastity cannot rescind
spirit shine, it's a sign
of a tortured mind (troubled mind)
spirit shine all the time
can render you blind
you can take it all to heart or throw it all away
You can call it just a lark or live your life that way
you can give until you're dry and sucked of all your gleam
you can fake another cry and compromise your dream
cling tight to the parable - let it dominate your life
create a God who's infallible - give your leader some respite
closed wounds harbor pestilence - when you lick them from within
rosy smiles lose their radiance - when you take it on the chin
11 Ten in 2010 (02:22)
Parched, cracked mouths, empty swollen guts
Sun baked pavement encroaches on us
Haves and have nots together at last
Brutally engaged in mortal combat
10 in 2010
10 in 2010
What kind of God orchestrates such a thing? (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
Ten billion people all suffering (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
Truth is not an issue just hungry mouths to feed (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
Forget what you want, scrounge the things you need (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
10 in 2010
10 in 2010... ok
Happy and content it can't happen to you (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
Fifteen years we'll think of a solution (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
It won't just appear in one day (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
For 10 in 2010 we're well on our way (10 in 2010, 10 in 2010)
10 in 2010
10 in 2010
Like piercing ear darts, I heard the news today
10 billion people...coming your way
(10 in 20)
10 in 20
10 in 2010...
12 Victory (02:36)
the velveteen and oaken fixtures soothed the lonely child
the parents watched the escort take him while they stood outside
the priest was kind and gentle as he positioned his head
the pain was like brimstone, but the kid hardly bled
victory
instinct over intellect
victory
it erupts from deep inside
history
history is laughing at us
plotting its discovery
victory, victory
blame it on the victory
among the parade crowd there stands a decorated man
remembering how he helped to save this sacred land
his helpless enemy was wounded, both hands raised with hope
he killed him without second thought, with brute force and a rope
so many times, so many lives
test the other side
waiting to see what the maker has in mind
the unsuspecting commoners hum diligent each day
they wallow in their father's sins, as time passes away
the crimes are without motive but they ignore all restraint
the evil sits inside them torpid timing its escape
13 Drunk Sincerity (02:13)
the smell of virgin pages wafted through the swinging doors
and the croaking speech he'd heard from countless counselors before
they said "We all care for you, we know how you suffer
but I know you can succed, I used to have it so much rougher."
there's hope in the words and emotion in the eyes
it's so easy to be misled by the savvy gentle guise
and like fools we trust the delivery
but it's all just drunk sincerity
it is all just drunk sincerity
In maternal family assembly poised regarding the blue tube
the numbers crept up higher and the hawks stayed out of view
then the generals said "we dont want our boys dead
your sons and your husbands will be coming back heroes soon"
there's hope in the words and emotion in the eyes
it's so easy to be misled by the savvy gentle guise
and like fools we trust the delivery
but it's all just drunk sincerity
it is all just drunk sincerity
with steam, heat, and rhythm in the back seat of the car
and adolescent perspective projecting life's forecast to the stars
you heard love from the lips and you were rapt by the hips
and the promise was eternal but you couldn't see that far
there's hope in the words and emotion in the eyes
it's so easy to be misled by the savvy gentle guise
and like fools we trust the delivery
but it's all just drunk sincerity
it is all just drunk sincerity
it is all just drunk sincerity
it is all just drunk sincerity
15 Cease (02:35)
blacktop pavement cover me
like a chemical reaction or a steam roller
spreading randomly
there's a distant buzz and a low frequency
it tickles my ear, it rumbles under my feet
and it shakes the leaves off of every tree (violently)
what pretension! Everlasting peace
everything must cease
institution on the Hill
like a beacon in the mind of an ancestor
to ignite a people's will
there's a shadowed stain on the west facade
it has spread like decay to enshroud the fraud
and the descendants find oh so odd
(oh so odd)
what pretension! Everlasting peace
everything must cease
grave memorial hewn white stone
like the comforting caress of a mother
or a friend you've always known
it evokes such pain and significance
what was once is reduced to remembrance
and the generations pass without recompense
what pretension! Everlasting peace
everything must cease
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