Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is something uniquely special about the great American steel town of Pittsburgh, nestled alongside a river as imposing to look at from above as the Mersey, Tyne or the Thames. The richness of the area is to be seen in its culture, historical links to almost every momentous occasion in the United States and the ties that made it a place to covet both during the wars between both sides of the independence debate and that between America’s soul of the Civil war.
Yet despite the tag of being America’s most liveable city and the abundance of wealth and commercialism that runs through the veins of the Allegheny, the Ohio and Monongahela Rivers, there is still the presence of the forsaken, the blue collar workers of old, of the foundry workers and those that have been left behind. It is anger that is felt in the social conscious statements that Anti Flag have long been proud to espouse and their latest album, American Spring, shows no sign of that message being dropped anytime soon.
Change, the Punk ethos and one that sometimes is allowed to filter through with perfect clarity, it is one that requires thoughtfulness but also one that needs to strive the point home that in 2015 the barbarity visited upon ordinary people, no matter where they live in the world, the senseless of extremes and waging war upon an ideal is the antipathies of true global peace. When it all comes down to control, when freedom is lost in the pursuit of greed and manipulation rather than the American standard and declaration in happiness; that is when the idea of an American Spring is to be heard.
Controlled aggression though in the face of such manipulation is to be applauded and the songs on American Spring reflect that sense of anger at the injustice meted out, the testing of ideological war over the souls of people. Tracks such as Brandenburg Gate, All of the Poison, All of the Pain, The Great Divide, Song For Your Enemy and To Hell With Boredom really capture the essence of enraged resentment at the way injustice is almost taken for granted and is sanctioned as long as you are left alone to watch it happen.
The tracks aren’t merely songs thrown together for effect, they are blistered barbs, a call to arms against a system that isn’t quite broken but has been bent out of shape, misplaced and abused to the point where it is no longer has the same honesty attached to it. If it is time for a revolution of the human spirit, a time to feel the burning fury about how the world has become a colder and more disparate place then American Spring is the catalyst, the standard bearer in which their forefathers would have flown just as high as Anti Flag.
American Spring is released via Spinefarm Records on May 25th.
Ian D. Hall