Rise Against - Appeal To Reason

Since I never got around to talkin about Rise Against's new release Appeal To Reason during my show, I figure I'd take a crack at writin a review. Here goes...

The Basics
Artist: Rise Against
Title: Appeal To Reason
Date: October 7, 2008

The Meat
So, I picked up this CD the day after it was released, and I was real excited. I had been talkin about these guys the day before, and one of the things I've always liked about Rise Against is that they've consistently released quality stuff. I even went so far as to say there isn't one song by them that I don't like (with the exception of their black flag covers on This Is Noise, sorry). Basically, I was real siked for this CD. Unfortunately, not what I was lookin for.

Appeal To Reason is Rise Against's 5th release, goin back to their first album, The Unraveling, in 2001. Since The Unraveling they've steadily gotten more "refined", which is pretty natural for any band. Their initial couple releases were alot more rough, the vocals more harsh, but the stuff was still quality. With Siren Song, they got more technical, but it also had some of their hardest tracks (State of the Union for example). The Sufferer and The Witness in 2006 continued on the same path as Siren Song, though less hard. There are a few slower tracks on it, but they fit well and made for a real good release.

With Appeal To Reason, Rise Against has come the closest to "mainstream" as they ever have, and none of it seems particularly daring. Don't get me wrong, there are some good tracks on it, and some catchy choruses. Hairline Fracture and Long Forgotten Sons stuck out the most to me, though they don't really stand up to Rise Against's previous releases. And, true to their style, Appeal To Reason has got alot of politics thrown in there, Re-Education (Through Labour) and Collapse (Post-Amerika) in particular. They've also thrown another acoustic track on this album. Their first acoustic track, Swing Life Away from Siren Song, is top notch. This time around, with Hero Of War, they address some real heavy stuff; a soldier's life, the atrocities that they witness and take part in, and how the public treats them whent they return. It's heavy, that's the best way I can describe it. On a couple tracks, they even give some gang vocals a shot, which is a new thing for them, but it just comes out wrong. One new thing that they did do with this album that I really like is the packaging. It's all recycled paper with inks from vegetables, which is a nice thing to see.

All in all, Appeal To Reason is...mediocre. It's a decent CD, and if it were from a different band with a different track record than Rise Against, I probably wouldn't be so rough on it. But what I was expecting and what it turned out to be were two different things. It just seems to be missing the gritty-ness that the rest of their stuff has always had. Talkin about big issues is important, and I respect that. But with this CD they seem to have focused on that too much, in my opinion, and there aren't really any tracks that reach out and connect on the base level.

I'd suggest checkin it out online before goin out to pick it up. If your a hardcore Rise Against fan, it's worth havin a copy of it. Just don't set your sights to high on this one.
Rating: 3/5

Stay Posi.