Album Review: Against Me - White Crosses

The release of Against Me’s first major label album in 2007 wasn’t the first time the band had to deal with idiotic sneering and pointless catcalls of “sell out”  but it certainly heralded the loudest racket on the subject. It seemed to me, however, that all the noise about whether or not the band had “sold out” drowned out a far more pressing concern: the album was, for the most part, “fucking boring”.

If you were hoping that White Crosses was going to be a return to Against Me’s fierce-yet-folk-infused material then you’re likely to be disappointed. The jaunty clap-along riff which ushers in the title track; the sober piano chords which open ‘Because of the Shame’ and the band’s flirtations with doo-wop harmony in ‘Spanish Moss’ all signal that, by and large, the band has gone back to the same well which provided them with their last album. Accordingly, this means that the record’s biggest weaknesses are undoubtedly producer Butch Vig’s insistence upon soaking the songs in vanilla extract before considering them release worthy, along with the fact that there are some flat out bad songs on here too (the hideous back-to-back of ‘Suffocation’ and ‘We’re Breaking Up’ threatens to derail the album completely). Nevertheless, aside from these unwelcome similarities, White Crosses asserts a few encouraging improvements over its predecessor.

One of the biggest drawbacks of New Wave was that most of the songs were boring, mainstream rock songs featuring Tom Gabel moaning about how mainstream rock songs are boring. This resulted in the album feeling like the band were desperately (and unsuccessfully) asserting their own relevance as well as attempting to convince themselves that they hadn’t sold out.

Thankfully, new songs like ‘I Was a Teenage Anarchist’ (note the use of past tense) go some way to usher in a genuine new wave for the band; a fresh lungful of “fuck you” for a band who were running out of ways to say it. When Tom Gabel disavows his old ideologies by admitting to himself that “[he] was a teenage anarchist / but the politics were too convenient / the revolution was a lie!” he proves himself unafraid to alienate those of his fans who sang along to ‘Baby I’m An Anarchist’ like it’s their national anthem.  Certainly, the music itself is relatively unremarkable, but Gabel’s unwillingness to mindlessly pander to his own audience re-establishes Against Me as the thoughtful and uncompromising band that set them apart in the punk scene in the first place.

White Crosses as a whole is far more introspective than the aimless finger-pointing of the previous record. Tom’s settling into his thirties now, and his newly jaded attitude pervades this collection of songs: “There’s just no future left for us to dream of” he sings (Tom’s transformation into fully fledged ‘singer’ is completed on this record, by the way) during ‘High Pressure Low’; “Do you share the same sense of defeat?/Are you realising all the things you’ll never be?” he asks us in ‘Ache With Me’. Against Me may have once “wanted to set the world on fire”, but this album sees them far more content to “make my way back home to you” and “find some place to get away”.

The softened edge doesn’t irk me. The band’s strength was never their anger in and of itself; it was the sense of honesty and self-awareness with which it was delivered that made the band special. Whilst White Crosses, for better or worse, continues down the path of radio-ready stadium punk with bigger hooks than ever, the album benefits hugely by moving back towards the band’s trademark sincerity and believability compared to the strained, try-hard feel of their last effort.