Guitars, Drums, Tones, and Saxophones

Bad Religion - New Maps of Hell

Keeping with my Election Day theme, one more review from a band largely known for its politics. And of course, one of my personal favorite bands. Bad Religion.

(Note: wow, this is a long-ass review)

I’m also kind of sick of seeing Dead to Me so overrepresented in the tag cloud, simply because there are two reviews of theirs, as of this writing. This should balance it out a bit.

Bad Religion follow-up their critically applauded return-to-form, The Process of Belief, with the timely and topical The Empire Strikes First. While many of the songs contained their trademark calls to arms that aren’t time-specific, many of the songs here were reactions to the current state of affairs at the time of its release in 2004. Here, the band seems less concerned with igniting the populace into immediate action, and is getting back to their usual attack between the ears.

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Bad Religion - Suffer (1987)

I’m going to start this blog with a review of an incredibly important album to any fan of modern punk rock. Well, this is less a review, since the last thing the Internet needs is another review of an undisputed classic, and more just writing on why this record is important.

Note that this is in no way objective. Suffer is my favorite record of all-time.

Previous to this 1987 release, Bad Religion were a well-known and well-liked L.A. hardcore band, but not the legends of punk they are today. They had released an excellent self-titled EP, an incredible first album (1982’s How Could Hell Be Any Worse?), and one completely out-of-left-field LP, the prog-rock Into the Unknown. During the recording of that album, the band had largely broken up. The future didn’t look bright for Bad Religion. (more…)