Rise Against
Endgame

Nomen omen. I'll try not to be excessively biased, but it's really hard for me to justify such a travesty. Pompous and superfluous, this "Endgame" is the last signature of a wildly overrated band, who entered the pantheon of melodic hardcore way too late (the first "The Unraveling," after all, is from 2001) and have always stood out for a more or less thinly veiled recycling of Good Riddance and No Use For A Name. With some gratuitous screaming thrown in, because, well, you have to be true.

Now, not that this is necessarily a bad thing: our guys, despite their formulaic approach, have done something good ("The Sufferer And The Witness" is a nice album) and, between highs ("Revolutions Per Minute") and lows ("Siren Song of The Counter Culture"), they more or less managed well enough. The problem is the underlying attitude, the self-referentiality with which they (and the fans) glorify every release, hailed (by them and the fans) as an indispensable chapter in the epic saga of the offspring of Black Flag. Tell me if it's not true. If only they were accompanied by more humility and honesty, they might even create some nice little works.

Instead, they are filled with empty rhetoric: the booklets are peppered with Orwellian quotes, excerpts from Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, assorted PETA fundamentalism (great stuff!). In short, arrogant crib notes for pretentious radical chic attack.

At best, they elicit a compassionate smile.

"Endgame" isn't even a nice little work. It's a useless appendix of Appeal To Reason, further sugarcoated (an obligatory step before proclaiming, with great fanfare, the predictable "return to roots"? Bets are open), which winks at the most crass stadium rock.

The reasons for the change in direction are the usual farces: a desire to break away from the adolescent ambitions of punk rock to reach more daring and personal stylistic solutions. Hahahahah, sure. I would love to ask Rise Against how many "Endgame" we've heard this past month, released by the worst extras (Ol Taim Lou, Escheipdefeit, Rufio, Tuamadrevacca...) of the "scene."

This alone would be enough to corner them, to make them scream about a conspiracy orchestrated by hypothetical red-robed judges. Nihil novi sub soli. The usual climbing pop/rock, drumming in my head about how Nestlé is evil, in perfect Bono style. And so, let's give Caesar what's Caesar's: this one of mine has no other utility than to oppose other reviews that (legitimately!) will claim the usual things, that it's still an album worth listening to, well-played and well-produced. That the "four," despite everything, hits a little harder. That the "six," more or less, has a nice hard rock riff. Well, I would add: nothing more was missing. The one remains. It's the bare minimum requirement for a product branded Interscope. Were they at least skilled architects (the only remedy in a corner for Strung Out when they spoon-feed us their garishness) well-versed in technicalities, Rise Against. No, they're just very clever anonymous surveyors. Getting by, navigating on the fly. Recycling a history that they've never lived. Diluting it, obviously.