| The album’s just over thirty-three minutes long; every song’s good, even the more thrashy ones that sort of stick out amidst the generally melodic proceedings. The musicianship is sterling, the production spot-on and unintrusive, and the raceway speed of it all is addictive. The sound-snippet from a piece of animal-rights propaganda that precedes the final song will chill your blood; I’ve been vegetarian for six years and it still made me lose sleep. Finally, I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t mention the song “Back to the Motor Leagues,” a simply brilliant attack on the herd mentality of punk rock scenesterism that’s a pastiche of the very styles whose devotees it attacks. Pretty easily one of the best songs you’ll hear this year, “Back to the Motor Leagues” boasts the already-cited compact phrases that make Today’s Empires such a delight to parse (“Take back your Amy Grant mosh crews, your fair-weather politics”) and a classic-rock guitar-drums breakdown that will make you reach for your Bic and pump your fist even as the song makes fun of you for doing so. Two songs later, Propagandhi quotes Judas Priest directly in a song about the left’s tendency to sabotage its own efforts. |