Review Summary: You can't split the arrow!
There was a time when the laws of physics weren't really set in stone, it seems. Long before Einstein showed us that space and time aren't exactly what we thought they were, long before Ben Franklin had a nice meeting with a little thing called electricity and even before a fellow named Isaac Newton had an apple falling on his head. Back then there was a guy called Robin Hood that managed to not only hit the bullseye but also to split another arrow exactly in half in the process.
Now we aren't fooled so easily. We know that that's even less than virtually impossible. But it's certainly a nice idea and therefore not surprising that one or the other musician gave it a shot and tried it themselves: Aiming for the same goal, the same sound, the same precision over and over again. Ever since Chicago's five-piece Rise Against broke through with
"The Sufferer & The Witness" in '07 with remarkable force and quality they sounded like they wanted exactly that. It was their anthemic, fist-pumping punk that made them great and since then they failed to replicate that formula in an overall fresh way, lazier on the overtly saccharine and radio-friendly
"Appeal To Reason", definitely fresher with the apocalyptic and heavier tone of
"Endgame". Yet one had to get the impression that these guys are past their best.
"The Black Market" only proves that theory.
But they try. And because of that and since they really, really want us to know it, they open up with
The Great Die-Off. The moment the guitars and drums kick in after the short string intro, you just know that they do what they always do. It's the kind of appetizer that all of their albums offer and with its fast-paced, driving riffs and drums it doesn’t fall short. Packed with all the energy they could find in themselves, it's one of the few tracks here that are actually reminiscent of what made them such a pleasure to listen to in the first place.
That's when the problems arise though. Cause after these three and a half minutes showed a band as vital as always, the following tracks don't do much to cement that impression. Beginning with lead single
I Don't Want To Be Here Anymore it is an album full of power chords lacking the necessary power, vocals without the punch to draw you into the song and one lazy mid-tempo track after the other. While that sounds like quite a withering critique, it isn't the whole truth. Because all underwhelming songs aside most of the time McIlrath and his companions are actually far away from hitting rock bottom. Yet they fail to appeal with performances like those of the overtly vocal-centered
Methadone or the uncomfortably soft
Tragedy + Time. Faster than one could expect they got to a point where they are closer to mainstream rock radio than to their hardcore punk days and it almost seems like they're perfectly fine with that. It's too bad that this contentment doesn't transcend too well to the listener. At its worst, precisely the dumbed-down pop-rock of
Sudden Life, it even makes you question, if these are really the guys you heard on
Give It All or
Injection.
Amidst all those lukewarm renditions of their old selves - minus the vital aggression and interesting lines - you need to settle for
The Eco-Terrorist In Me as the one and only real high-quality misfit. What starts with a fierce riff ends up as a fabulous amalgamation of all of these guys virtues. The powerful screams of Tim McIlrath finally celebrate a comeback, backed by the fastest drumming Brandon Barnes has done for years, Zach Blair's strong riffs and background vocals that finally don't sound lazy. And while they're at it, they even drop the unhealthy habit of slowing down as soon as the chorus sets in, instead even speeding up. With all that, there's a certain irony in the fact that it's exactly this songs chorus that raises the big question behind the record:
"When it all comes down, will you say you did everything you could?"
Apart from that short wake-up call only two other tracks manage to break out of the mediocrity.
Awake Too Long takes the same line as
Eco-Terrorist and while it certainly isn't as much of an outburst, the rhythm section works well enough to keep the track alive and more. Surprisingly it's the ballad
People Live Here that rounds out the worthwhile moments here. Even if the more and more dominant strings scream pathos at the top of their lungs, McIlraths pithy vocals manage to stay away from the horrific performance of
Hero Of War and instead carry the song decent enough whenever it is limited to the subtle guitar work.
Nevertheless those few glimpses of vital creativity and craft can only make up for so many shortcomings. Looking at it, their sound becoming kind of worn out isn't that much of a surprise. Even the most honest and energetic rebellious punk anthems full of socio-critical comments seem to have their expiration date, even more so as the energetic part was pretty much lost along the way.
"Endgame" circumvented that problem with a darker, slicker sound and succeeded with it at least partly,
"The Black Market" doesn't. Instead Rise Against's seventh record is the one that tries to bring them back to '07, only making the difference between now and then even more apparent. Well, looks like even the straightest arrow can't hit the same target twice.
Recommended Tracks:
- The Great Die-Off
- The Eco-Terrorist In Me
- Awake Too Long
