Against Me! - As The Eternal Cowboy (2003)

As mainstream audiences embrace bands of dubious punk rock merit like Blink-182 and Sum-41 and other alpha-numeric ciphers, the real punk rock kiddies are getting their cheap thrills from old school masters like Rancid, Bad Religion and Pennywise. For music lovers seeking new musical challenges and hardcore jollies, however, the Reverend recommends Against Me! This Gainesville, Florida foursome has been kicking around on the fringes for a while, recording some solid material for their hometown label No Idea and earning a following the old-fashioned way – by playing their collective asses off with no major label financing and little press coverage.

All of that's about to change, methinks, with the release of the band's As The Eternal Cowboy on the larger and well-respected Fat Wreck Chords label. The album is certain to raise the brand's profile and, considering the quality of music on As The Eternal Cowboy, might just spark a bidding war among major label A&R drones with dollar signs in their eyes. Your humble scribe doesn't think that the temptation of filthy lucre will be enough to lure Against Me! away from the band's indie rock roots, tho'. Affirmed leftists with a thinly veiled lyrical agenda, Against Me! are old-fashioned rocking radicals with a new-fangled sound. As The Eternal Cowboy moves the band past notions of three-chord punk, bringing elements of roots rock, blues and even alt-country to play in support of a solid collection of songs guaranteed to blow the dust from your speakers.

Against Me! walk a lyrical barbed-wire tightrope between rock and rhetoric, Tom Gabel's intelligent lyrics adding a personal feel to tried-and-true socio-political polemics. "Turn Those Clapping Hands Into Angry Balled Fists" is a clever take on consumerism and conformity, the average person embracing mediocrity in order to avoid confrontation. The anthemic "Cliche Guevara" is a spirited call for a new revolution, the band crying "there's a lot of things that should be said, so we're hammering six strings, machine gun in audible voices, this is the party we came for" with a violent fervor. "Mutiny On The Electronic Bay" takes its cue from Noam Chomsky, spotlighting fashionable wartime chic for the hypocrisy that it is, concluding that "when an invasion can bring a country to its freedom, then unconsciousness it true happiness..."

"Slurring The Rhythms" mixes metaphors, a traditional rock & road song with stinging guitars and an upbeat tempo standing as a thinly-disguised commentary on the fleeting nature of progress and the brevity of life, the song trailing out with the haunting words "we are never going home." Against Me! handle personal relationships with several songs here, most notably the rapid-fire "You Look Like I Need A Drink" and the country-flavored "Cavalier Eternel," Gabel bringing a fresh perspective to the "beautiful loser" persona that is legend in rock & romance. Throughout As The Eternal Cowboy, Against Me! play like their very lives depend on it, the band tilting at windmills with reckless abandon, guitars screaming and rhythms crashing like hurricane-fueled waves on the shore. Recorded at the legendary Ardent Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, the birthplace of rock & roll, As The Eternal Cowboy is a significant musical statement from one of the most exciting young bands in the punk rock world. You'd have to be a real twit to pass this one by on your way to the Good Charlotte section of your local record store. (Fat Wreck Chords)

(Click on the CD cover to buy As The Eternal Cowboy from Amazon.com)