Strike Anywhere - Exit English
With Good Riddance having past their heyday and Bad Religion constantly in limbo, Strike Anywhere rises as the lone torch bearer for political punk amidst the sometimes potent Anti-Flag and Against Me!
After almost six years of being together, you come to that point in your musical life where you either reinvent yourself, or take what you have and perhaps refine it in order to continue with what you have been doing. Refinement is the only way to avoid being forgotten (and that place in used bins across the nation).
These Richmond boys have outdone themselves and focused all of their energy into creating what I think will go down as their definitive record. This strikes such a perfect balance between crafty, meaningful lyrics and a soundtrack to a revolution. Maybe not a revolution on a large scale but I can see this impacting people in the way that Propaghandi did with Less Talk, More Rock. With harmonized choruses, sing-a-longs galore and a passionate vocal delivery, Exit English boasts an intangible live quality that is very difficult to capture in the studio but once again done to near perfection here.
The potential for this band is quite staggering as their shows are usually a hodgepodge of different scenes from your stereotypical hardcore kid to your liberty spike wearing punk rocker. With Good Riddance having past their heyday and Bad Religion constantly in limbo, Strike Anywhere rises as the lone torch bearer for political punk amidst the sometimes potent Anti-Flag and Against Me! It certainly takes a unifying quality to make this many people huddle together under the umbrella of one band.
I really would go on and give you more reasons of why this is one of the most important records to come out this past year but I feel it would be redundant if I did. This is what today’s punk rock should be modeled after, or at least that is what I hope the side you normally see on MTV2 will take heed to. Exit English is an essential release for caustic times in the music scene.
(Jade Tree Records)