Review Summary: Far from perfect, but huge steps in the right direction.
Bands who build their image off of angst and pure energy simply can not keep it over long periods of time with continuous outputs (with a few exceptions, of course). Rise Against are, however, not one of those exceptions. Ever since the success of Appeal to Reason, Rise Against has shifted from a band describable as punk with melodic elements to a band describable as melodic with punk elements. Rise Against has only cemented this with Wolves, and die-hard fans of Revolutions Per Minute and The Unraveling may find themselves cringing at many aspects of this album. However, Rise Against seems to have found its sound with Wolves, for better or for worse.
One thing is for certain; this album blurs the line between punk and alt-rock far better than previous releases. There are some songs that use punk elements and the lyrics are as scathing and political as ever, but this album has more in common aurally with an alt-rock album. Some songs, such as "House of Fire" and "Politics of Love," are heavily centered around catchy choruses and vocal melodies, while "Welcome to the Breakdown" and "Wolves" try to fuse a modern emphasis on melodies with elements from their earlier works. While the latter formula is far more successful and produces far better results, the former has some successful results as well. For instance, the closer of the album, "Miracle," uses its melody to drive the song, and it works quite effectively.
Rise Against isn't reinventing their sound, but throughout Wolves there are multiple instances of successful experimentation. There are multiple riffs on the album that make use of effective note spacing, like the bridges on "Parts Per Million" and "Good Mourning In Amerika." The ways that Tim implements screaming is another example of Rise Against's careful experimentation. Tim doesn't reserve a majority of his screaming for one song, instead he screams a handful of lines on various tracks regardless of how catchy or sugar-coated the choruses may sound. This experimentation is welcome and truly gives a character to the album, unlike the more homogenous recent outputs.
There are, however, some glaring flaws with the album. The lyrics leave a lot to be desired; despite their obvious passion, at face value they do not offer much to the listener. They declare their opinion on modern politics, they gripe about sour relationships (the most punk of topics), and the anthems present reek of cliché. The only song with genuinely good lyrics is the lead single "Violence", in which Tim questions if violence is genetically hardwired into mankind. Soundwise, some songs on the first listen are guaranteed to blend together and some songs become repetitive due the nature of a melody-focused album. Certain problems that have plagued Rise Against's Appeal to Reason and onward continue on this album, sadly. The middle of the album trudges along with a bevy of low-BPM songs, Brandon Barne's drumming is remarkably unremarkable, and some songs are easily labeled as filler even though the tracklist only contains 11 songs.
However, the biggest personal gripe comes from the mixing. Rise Against no longer has Bill Stevenson as their producer and it shows. Stevenson was the perfect producer for Rise Against. He gave every album a bite, but still allowed melodies to take the forefront when they needed to. Stevenson always gave Tim's vocals an extra edge with his mixes that is severely lacking in Wolves. In addition, the instrumentals also would have benefited from a less squeaky-clean production. Songs such as "Welcome to the Breakdown" are slightly hindered by their lack of impact within the mix. It simply does not have the ability to bring out the grittier riffs. Ironically enough, the previously mentioned melody-driven song "Miracles" contains by far the punchiest riff on the album. It's loud and heavy, so loud and heavy it leaves one guess as to why this wasn't present more throughout the album.
At the very least, Rise Against created an album that experiments with actual focus. An album that is far from their best, but sufficient in combining traces of their punk roots within a newer melody-driven sound.
