Year 6, Day 34: Taking a Victory Lap with Propagandhi

Year 6, Day 34: Propagandhi – Victory Lap

Track Listing

1. Victory Lap
2. Comply/Resist
3. Cop Just Out of Frame
4. When All Your Fears Collide
5. Letters to a Young Anus
6. Lower Order (A Good Laugh)
7. Failed Imagineer
8. Call Before You Dig
9. Nigredo
10. In Flagrante Delicito
11. Tartuffle
12. Adventures in Zoochosis

About the Album

Victory Lap is the seventh studio album from Canadian punk band, Propagandhi. The album was released on September 29th 2017 through Epitaph Records.

Thoughts on the Album

I am pretty sure that with today’s album, we have reached peak Canadian for the duration of the project. Three (I think) Canadian bands in one calendar week. Propagandhi is today’s featured artist with their seventh studio effort, Victory Lap, which is their first album released in five years. Leave it to a bunch of Canadians to write and produce a set of incredibly socially and politically conscious songs. Here’s the thing with Victory Lap… it takes the melodic hardcore punk that Propagandhi is known for and somehow turns it into metal. Not sure what kind of sorcery they used to make it work, but it’s incredibly good. Punk at it’s most base and primal form is raw, powerful, and rebellious. With the addition of the metal elements (found with guitars, not on the periodic table), Victory Lap breathes life into a genre that’s been kicking around for the last four-plus decades or so.

Propagandhi has always been a cut above the rest in the genre. Maybe it’s because they’re Canadian… I don’t know. Propagandhi is band that when they release an album, they have something to say. It’s giving a savage message that is delivered with such raging energy that this genre is sorely missing at the moment… especially given the global climate. Victory Lap comes at you with both intelligence and honesty. It’s thirty six and a half minutes of guitar riffs that thrash about like sea waves in a typhoon. While there really isn’t any diversion from what’s already been done and the differences here are minute, where it lacks in innovation, it makes up in incredible songwriting. It’s the blistering guitar riffs and breakneck speed of Comply/Resist and the melancholic breather of Nigredo.

What Victory Lap does best and strongest is that it has excellent and incredible control over a wide range of moods and emotions that the album an exceedingly engaging one from start to finish. The musicianship is amazing and dynamic ranging from the grooving gymnastics of the bass to the powerful and earthquaking drums to the blistering guitar riffs and fantastic solos. The instrumentals on this album offer up countless stellar and powerful moments that showcases the band at their peak, even after 31 years in the game. What this album does is offer up Propagandhi at their purest form, albeit with some tapping into some past elements. Comply/Resist is a sharp-edged, propulsive, and explosive tune that’ll make the hairs on the back of your neck stand at attention. The same goes for When Your Fears Collide. Tracks like Letters to a Young Anus and Failed Imagineer offer up more hardcore punk rager moments and shows off just versatile and well-schooled this band is.

Conclusion

While Victory Lap is a slightly weighty album that leans on the bands more playful side which occasionally detracts from the lyrics. That’s really my only gripe about this album. It’s the best punk album from 2017, hands down. The vocals are delivered with a sense of unyielding conviction that are still hungry for more. An unyielding conviction that is set on melting your face. The music backing the vocals is damn near flawless and delivered with almost the same conviction and incredibly high standard. Half-Metallica, half-Black Flag (or Dead Kennedys, if you prefer), Propagandhi‘s Victory Lap is punk at it’s best and highest standards. And while Propagandhi might not be able to save the world by their lonesome selves, Victory Lap serves as their call to arm to join the fray and fight back. And yeah sure, it’s alright if you take some breaks to slam dance.

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Year 5, Day 23: Pennywise’s anthem for the activist

Year 5, Day 23: Pennywise – Land of the Free?

Track List

1. Time Marches On
2. Land of the Free?
3. The World
4. Fuck Authority
5. Something Wrong With Me
6. Enemy
7. My God
8. Twist of Fate
9. Who’s on Your Side
10. It’s Up to You
11. Set Me Free
12. Divine Intervention
13. WTO
14. Anyone Listening

About the Album

Land of the Free? is the sixth studio album from American punk band, Pennywise. The album was recorded from February 2001 to March 2001 and released on June 19th 2001 through Epitaph Records. Land of the Free? peaked number 67 on the Billboard 200.

Thoughts on the album

Political and activists have found solace in bands like Anti-Flag, Bad Religion, No-FX, and Pennywise just to name a few. Bands whose music confronts social problems and make calls to action. That’s where we are today with Pennywise‘s 2001 album, Land of the Free?. If it was any other band, “Land of the Free?” would’ve been a brave rhetorical question to title an album. It is an excellent political anthem for the activist, issues a call to action for each and every listener. While the album does get repetitive (most punk and pop-punk albums do), it is incredibly strong musically and lyrically.

The album opens with the fast paced and catchy, Time Marches On. Right off the bat, it seems like this album will be full of fast paced tracks much like their previous albums. But it’s not like that. The album has songs that shift speeds and tempos, making it a an incredibly versatile album. The album was released in June 2001, which was months before 9/11, the Invasion of Afghanistan, and at least two years before the Invasion of Iraq. What could the band be so pissed off about one would think. The argument could be made it’s about President Bush, but the world has always had it’s social and societal problems… even before Bush took office.

What separates Pennywise from being just another “trendy” anti-establishment band? Pennywise has always been socially and politically conscious. Anyone Listening tackles tragedies that were occurring at the time. The World takes violence that happens everyday in the world and broadcasts it in a manner in way that makes the listener wonder if we’ll ever find our way. The titular track, Land of the Free?, is a criticism of the United States for being hypocritical for thriving on national unity.

Of course, then there is the fourth track… Fuck Authority. I’d censor it, but that’s the way it’s written on the album cover, so that’s way it is. It is a siren’s call for action, via it’s demand that “it’s time we had our say…” Musically speaking it’s the definition of a hardcore punk song. It’s fast paced and in-your-face. Some would also argue that it fill the “anarchist punk” category, for which, I certainly won’t disagree.

Conclusion

Land of the Free? certainly paints a perfect picture of life in the United States prior to 9/11. At times throughout the album, it seems like the band is calling out to deaf, while themselves stumbling blindly about in the dark. You can sense the frustration that the band feels with the way the current state of affairs were, but it’s like the solutions escape their grasp. The songs singe with emotion and with a bone-sharp edge. It is a great album that should open up conversations and grassroots movements for years to come.

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