Rise Against
Endgame

The Rise Against have evolved, and that's a fact. The audience has incredibly increased in recent years, and there are more and more minds that the frontman Tim can reach. This is certainly one of the factors (including the change of guitarist) that has led not only to a sound evolution (for better? for worse? probably neither) but also to a change in content.

Taking a first glance at the lyrics, you can see how now, more than ever, the Chicago trio has become a source and promoter of all the natural, social, and political problems (but this does not mean they should be considered a partisan band) that ensnare the world we live in. No "fuck the world" nor slogans like "the world sucks, we're all gonna die." They present you with many questions, and the answer lies in interpreting them correctly.

The album opens with the powerful "Architects" and already here some characteristics common to the entire album can be observed. Massive use of choirs that further color the work, a chorus not as fierce as one would expect from fans who fell in love with the band with albums like "Siren Song Of The Counter Culture", but which after a few listens acquires its own reason.

Next, we find two tracks with a structure that immediately presents you with the chorus, perhaps repeating it too much. The listening flows smoothly, with a couple of highlights (finally Tim returns to scream) until we reach "Satellite". Probably the best song of the album, with fantastic lyrics that explode in the chorus when, at that point, it becomes almost poetry.

"Midnight Hands", "Survivor Guilt", "Broken Mirrors" form the album's most pleasant trio, a series of great hard rock riffs, screams, aggression, not exaggerated rhythms, and once again lyrics that flow almost like perfect rhymes, worthy of the best contemporary poet. There are also excellent bass lines, such as in "Wait For Me" or tracks with a more punk rock flavor, like "A Gentlemen's Coup".

It is certainly not a concept album, but the atmosphere it provides is precisely what the band intended, a desolate steppe, an American dream that shatters against reality, transitioning from a "youthful" positivity to a resignation (if it can be called that) that emerges in the last two songs. It's the end of the game, the city burns, there are dead bodies on the ground but no one feels anything anymore, there are no gods, no antidotes, it’s man who has self-destructed, falling back into the same mistakes... and now she, that life, almost personified with a woman’s face, sees the end ahead.

Will it prove to be an album as current as it is visionary? Looking back at songs like "Re-Education", the answer seems obvious.