Rise Against – Siren Song Of The Counter Culture

Rise Against have built a steady fan base over the past couple years with two solid releases (The Unraveling and Revolutions Per Minute) on Fat Wreck Chords. The latter of the two is an album, which many people agree, is a classic punk rock album. It blew critics and fans away and made its way onto countless top ten lists. Then the band switched labels and signed onto Dreamwork Records, the secondFat Wreck band to sign to a major. People started to wonder whether or not this will spell the end of their illustrious careers. Soon after that the guitarist left and was replaced by Chris Chase of Reach The Sky; this put even more doubt into the minds of fans.

Enter Siren Song Of The Counter Culture, Rise Against‘s debut major label release, to squash all those doubts and fears. Featuring twelve tracks of blistering punk rock songs, the album is everything I wanted it to be. It opens up with State Of The Union, a quick, hard, fast paced song. It is a hard-core song which kind of catches you of guard and grabs your attention right away, think of To The Core fromRevolutions Per Minute. After the hard opener, they break into the album full force. There isn’t one weak song on it. You can’t help but stop in awe as Paper Wings (which is Siren Song‘s Like The Angel) and Life Less Frightening start playing. Tim’s voice, like every other song on this album, is right on as he sings powerful lyrics like:

“I can’t tell if your laughing
between each smile there’s a tear in your eye
there’s a train leaving town in an hour
its not waiting for you, and neither am I”

You find it hard to believe that Tim’s voice have been able to stay so strong through all three albums and years of touring. It is strong, powerful, right on cue, and pitched perfectly, just amazing. Ending the album is Rumors Of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, which is probably the best album finisher I have ever heard.

This is THE album I’ve been waiting for. Plain and simple. It is one of the best albums I’ve heard in a long time, there are no fillers, no weak songs, nothing that you want to skip; it will be the number one album of the year. So go and get it… now.