In Media Res: Bookmarked for Action

Stuck in the middle with you:
In Medias Res jumps into the heat of battle

by Christine Leonard
August 18, 2011  

Vancouver’s phantom indie rock outfit In Medias Res remains true to its name as the reluctant quartet picks up roughly where it left off with the release of its sophomore LP, It Was Warm and Sunny When We First Set Out. Already an up-and-coming concern with a steady fanbase and some novella-worthy road stories to its credit, In Medias Res, hung up the ol’ “Gone Fishing” sign under mysterious circumstances. According to vocalist Andrew Lee, the band’s fate remained in post-rock limbo after an exhausting tour in support of their debut album Of What Was until popular opinion finally revived them.

“To the public we haven’t really been a band since 2006,” says singer and guitarist Andrew Lee. “We had to field all kinds of rumours as people wondered if we were still together, which didn’t help the situation that was brewing internally. When we hit the road in 2005 it was with a purpose. We wanted to win over every city we played. When we returned home at the end of all that the applause we were receiving seemed automatic and it weirded us out. It was too comfortable; it didn’t require us to push.”

Leading up to its second LP, the band broke through the ennui envelope with the stellar 11-minute opus “The Dark Crystal,” launched on a name-your-price basis online this past December. Reinvigorated by this successful return to form, the foursome felt that the time had arrived to embark on their next full-length attempt. Recorded with Jonathan Anderson (Aidan Knight, Radiogram, Stabilo), who also contributed vocals and background instruments for the album, as well as production duo Dave Carswell and John Collins (The New Pornographers, Destroyer, Tegan and Sara), It Was Warm and Sunny When We First Set Out demonstrates the frenetic fraternity of Lee alongside drummer Steve Watts, lead guitarist Ash Poon and bassist Ryan Flowers.

“It feels good to have the album out after so much buildup,” Lee says. “Even though we weren’t performing we still got together and jammed as a band on a regular basis. We practiced every Thursday night and on Saturday mornings we’d go for breakfast and then jam. These songs came out of that lull period. It’s us singing it out.”

Twenty-something juggernauts, In Medias Res continually delight and surprise with a hard-hitting and quirky style. Auspiciously, its fast and hooky sound gained professional confirmation this June when In Medias Res was “discovered” by Vancouver-based File Under: Music. The label quickly set about releasing It Was Warm And Sunny When We First Set Out, producing hard copies of the LP that took three long years to complete in less than three weeks, much to the group’s obvious delight.

“Schematically, the way this album came together is a total accident,” says sonic youth Andrew Lee. “As a songwriting man, I think the apocalyptic images of romance that ends in death represent the extremes we’ve allowed ourselves to go to in finding a new direction and a new place to start. We’re done with hashing out our influence; we dealt with the bands that we wanted to be on our first album. We’ve branched into a more faithful punk rock sound. It’s a totally new game for In Medias Res.”

AMON AMARTH - Interview with Ted Lundström by Christine Leonard-Cripps

Twilight of the emo gods

Amon Amarth pushes the Valhallan threshold

 

Named for Mount Doom in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings saga, Amon Amarth is one of Sweden’s preeminent death metal bands. As melodic as it is brutal in their musical methods, berserker vocalist Johan Hegg, guitarists Olavi Mikkonen and Johan Söderberg, bassist Ted Lundström and drummer Fredrik Andersson have forged eight full-length releases since the forging of their frostbitten coalition in 1992.

Intermeshing dark funereal themes with lightning quick riffery and thundering percussion, the so-called Viking metal act has become synonymous with horned-helmets and vicious blade-work thanks to Ragnaröking albums such as With Oden on Our Side (2006) and Twilight of the Thunder Gods (2008). Echoing their ordained "loot-and-pillage" motif, Amon Amarth’s 2011 release on the infamous Metal Blade, Surtur Rising, features pagan-friendly cuts such as "War of the Gods," "The Last Stand of Frej” and "Wrath of the Norsemen," effectively capturing the visceral vehemence and quick-fingered prowess of this enigmatic and galvanizing entity.

Bassist and founding member Ted Lundstrom pauses mid-tour to reflect on Amon Amarth’s mythical past and the uncertainty of navigating the Middle-Earthean path laid out before them.

Interviewer Christine Leonard-Cripps: Casting back to your band’s formative years, how difficult was it to distinguish Amon Amarth from the other “metal” bands who were emerging from Sweden at that time?

Ted Lundstrom: Since we were from Stockholm playing something sounding more like a Gothenburg-style, we never really had to compete with the other bands from our area and at the same time we never sounded too much like the Gothenburg bands anyway...

But as a new band people and press like to label you sounding like this and that and it took a couple of years until people started to say we actually had our own style. I guess you have to reach a level before you stop getting compared to other bands and getting other bands compared to you.

CLC: Why do you think Sweden has become such a Mecca for heavy metal music? Is it something to do with the cultural climate, the physical geography or simply the ability of the individual citizen to pursue their “dream careers”?

 TL: Yes, yes and yes. I think there are as many reasons as there are interview victims. One of the reasons we are playing as a band is probably because it was very easy to start a band in our neighbourhood, we had a youth place where we could borrow instruments and get help from experienced people to get started. Later we also could get rehearsal room and studio time at a very reasonable cost. Where the quality comes from is harder to explain though.

CLC: How did you initially determine what your sound would be, what themes or ideas informed your artistic direction?



TL: We just took inspiration from all the music we listened to and tried to make something we enjoyed ourselves. Black metal was on the uprising at the moment but Satanism was not really our thing so we decided to go towards Vikings and battles instead, I think Johan’s big interest in Norse mythology and my interest in fantasy gave us a little kick in the right direction.” 


Of the eight studio albums in Amon Amarth’s impressive discography which stand(s) out as your personal favourite(s)?

“I like the last three albums best, they are a step up production wise and the songwriting is more mature and homogenic. I still love the old albums; they all have a special place in our hearts.

CLC: Is there a particular album or performance that you believed changed the future of the band?

TL: We’ve had a quite slow and steady growth as a band but I think Versus the World gave us a big push in Europe and in North America Fate of Norns was the album that started something bigger. We also had a north American tour together with Children of Bodom and Trivium in 2005 that was an important step for us.

CLC: How important is it to you to produce music that has meaning beyond the sheer physical enjoyment of listening to one of your songs? In other words, how do you balance intellectual substance with sheer emotional power?

TL: Our music is written as a concept in a way, of course the music is the most important part but we want everything to be a unit. We spend a lot of time to get music, lyrics and also album cover art to fit each other. I think this is something we have from the time we where young and listened to heavy metal vinyl albums. You could spend hours looking for cool details on the latest Iron maiden cover, reading every lyric over and over again, this is something that I miss with downloaded music and also CDs.”

CLC: Which comes first the lyrics or the music? Do you use any musical instruments or techniques that might be considered unusual for “heavy metal” bands?


TL: It could be either way, sometimes we start with some phrases written by Johan and start building the song and other times we might have a full song written and we try to get a feeling of what the lyrics should be about. I would love to say that we’re using old instruments made of reindeer hides but we’re just an old school rock’n’roll band playing guitars and drums.

CLC: How mindful are you of past accomplishments, releases, collaborations when you are penning new songs? Are you ever concerned with repeating yourself? What’s more important – breaking new ground to keep yourselves interested or representing the quintessential Amon Amarth sound and preserving its legacy?

TL: It’s tricky to keep everybody happy, no matter what you do some people will love it and some will hate it. After twenty years as a band we have fans of our older stuff and we have newer fans that prefer the last couple of albums, but in the end we as a band have to be happy with the songs otherwise it would never work.

CLC: What motivates you when you’re going on stage, on tour, or stepping in the studio? 


TL: At a live concert it is the energy you get from the audience that is the motivation, we love to play live. when it comes to the studio it is all about making something better than the last time, better production, better songs. You work hard in the studio for weeks or months and when everything falls into place and you can hear the final product it is a great reward.”

CLC: Any advice (including guidelines for looting and/or pillaging) for the up-and-comers who want to thunder like Amon Amarth?

TL: Just listen to your own heart and have fun along the way. We’ve played together for almost twenty years now and we have had up’s and down’s along the way but there is nothing I regret.

By Christine Leonard-Cripps
Originally published August 4, 2011 in Fast Forward Magazine

Matthew Barber : In Name Only

Barber's misery finds company

Songwriter recruits friends to back him on self-titled album

by Christine Leonard
June 9, 2011

Matthew Barber returns with his six full-length album named, get this, Matthew Barber

We’re all familiar with the saying “misery loves company,” and when it comes to traveling and performing on the open road the pressures and politics of being in a band can often push artists past the point of enjoyment into the realms of a professional private hell. Perhaps that’s why Mississauga’s Matthew Barber has been having such a great time as a footloose and fancy-free soloist on the eastern Canadian folk-rock scene.

“I’ve done the solo thing alongside the band thing my whole career,” the versatile singer-songwriter says. “Solo touring has been a big part of my life for the last six, seven and now eight years. Yeah, I’ve been doing more and more of it recently. I love playing with bands, but the pros and cons don’t always balance out.

“It’s a blast being on the road with friends and the dynamic energy a group can bring to the stage is truly exciting, but it’s also prohibitively expensive. Luckily, I happen to be someone who can play solo and still have that much fun. Plus, the fans who come out to my shows seem to prefer seeing me this way, so I can honestly say I don’t feel like I’m shortchanging them. And, as an added bonus, I actually get to pocket some of the proceeds at the end of the day.”

Bringing it on home in the most immediate sense, the talented multi-instrumentalist opted to record his latest album within a decidedly domestic sanctum. Painstakingly piecing together what amounts to his sixth LP in relative isolation, Barber is pleased to have completed his self-titled 10-track opus just in time for an early June release prior to a cross-Canada run of summer- tour dates with friend Oh Susanna (Suzie Ungerleider).


“This latest record represents a departure in that I usually have whole bands join me in the studio,” Barber explains. “This time I worked on my recordings at home in the basement, recorded all the parts myself and layered them on using a half-inch eight-track analog recorder. I did it my way.”


“Obviously, the songs take a different shape on the road. My approach to the instrumentation is either electric or acoustic guitar or piano; I like to use all three interchangeably, so for live interpretation, it’s just a matter of finding out what works. That’s what I’m busy figuring out at the moment.”

Once again dipping into the wellsprings of his hungry heart, Barber touches on some sentimental favourites for his newest offering. Thumbing through his troubadour’s diary of thought for the perfect poetic inspiration, Barber blends gentle twang-tinged ballads and spirited folk-rock shakers for this warm and woody self-titled release which officially drops on June 7.

A fitting follow-up to last year’s True Believer and the Juno Award-nominated Ghost Notes, Barber’s latest record features 10 fresh yet carefully considered tracks that are immeasurably informed by the musician’s current state of romantic security and bliss; he reminds us of this on the charming cut “Ring Upon Your Finger” with the line, “I’m singing ‘cuz I’m a singer, baby; it’s what I do with my life.” Barber’s slow spiritual swing number, filled with austere and honest vows of fidelity and rootsy harmonica lacing, seems to be destined for alternative trip-down-the-aisle bridal processions everywhere.

“My songs are almost always dealing with something personal,” Barber says. “I tend to write in the first person; the trait of showing my intimate side and what I’ve experienced in life continues on this album. To me, art is about taking that personal grain of inspiration and translating it into something that is more universalized.”

“I want people to feel like they can relate and make sense of the emotions being portrayed. I am in love right now. Of course, it’s easier to write when you’re feeling the blues; art of all varieties goes well with melancholia, but just because I’m in a good place doesn’t mean I’m going to go out and sabotage my life for art.”

“Some people succeed in feeding off of that kind of drama for a while, but it’s a bad trade in the end. I may be a romantic, and I may have even tricked some people into thinking I’m an optimist, but my so-called love songs are all tinged with uncertainty. I like to keep people guessing.”

Matthew Barber performs at Palomino 

EVERYDAY SUNSHINE - THE STORY OF FISHBONE

Metzler doc has Fishbone shining

Everyday Sunshine has vet Cali act navigating the racialized waters of ’70s L.A.

We’re all familiar with the images of public school desegregation in Texas back in 1956, black children being led into their formerly all-white schools under guard as angry mobs jeer from the sidelines. Flash forward some 20 years, and the next generation of African-Americans were met with a similar circumstance, as Los Angeles began bussing students from outlying black neighbourhoods into the city’s more affluent and predictably white high schools. Despite protests by white parents, the likes of Fishbone’s Angelo Moore and Norwood Fisher were soon ushered into a previous unexplored environment, one that exposed them to the surf and punk rock culture of their newly acquired peer group.

Already well-acquainted with the worlds of funk, jazz, reggae and R&B, the singer and bassist pooled their talents with drummer Phillip “Fish” Fisher (Norwood’s brother), guitarist Kendall Jones, keyboardist Chris Dowd and trumpet player Walter Kirby to form the original 1979 lineup of Fishbone. Tracing the groundbreaking ensemble’s twisted roots, filmmakers Chris Metzler and Lev Anderson have gone to remarkable lengths to uncover the ins and outs of one of North America’s most influential bands in Everyday Sunshine, screening at this year’s iteration of the Calgary Underground Film Festival.

“They are the storytellers of their age,” explains co-director and writer Chris Metzler. “They grew up in the first post-civil rights generation in the 1970s and were raised with the promise and belief that came with that. The challenge of making the film was to reveal that era of L.A.’s history; it’s one of the most racially polarized yet multicultural spaces in the world. Through Fishbone, we wanted to tell the story of the black experience and the insolence that came from them as a result of the city they came from.”

Of course, no trip to the Hollywood Hills would be complete without some bonafide star-spotting, and Everyday Sunshine doesn’t disappoint. According to Metzler, the directors had a difficult time narrowing down the number of celebrity interviews they could include in the movie. Having spawned innumerable acts in its three-decade career, Fishbone has attracted some pretty impressive followers.

Everyone from Flea to Perry Farrell to Ice T to Gwen Stefani chimes in on Fishbone’s no-holds-barred, genre-straddling, mosh-pit-igniting performances. Stefani, in particular, expresses a deep affection for frontman Moore — his persona has been the single greatest influence on her style as a lead singer. Another of the film’s gems is a smooth and informative narrative thread furnished by none other than Laurence Fishburne, who provides insight into the events and conditions surrounding Fishbone’s meteoric rise to an equally mercurial fall, one that finds the band in court for trying to kidnap/force an intervention on one of its own.

“We tried to stay away from the cache of name recognition in dealing with the celebrities in this film,” says Metzler. “We wanted to stick to people who were family members and close friends for this one, but there are so many who have been personally touched by the band. Contemporaries, followers, friends outside music — there is a lot of admiration for them and a lot of relationships to be talked about. Fishbone has been involved in punk, ska, rock, metal, hip hop.... Everyone wanted in! Laurence knew the band from his days working as a nightclub bouncer back in the ’80s; he was the perfect voice to explain the issues surrounding the film.”

Determined to witness the life of Fishbone firsthand, filmmakers Metzler and Anderson spent three to four years tracking the band on tour, delving into members’ home lives, and watching over their shoulders, as Fisher struggles to get Moore’s alter-ego, Dr. Madd Vibe, to step away from the theremin. Recent and archival concert footage is interwoven with Ground Zero reports, family album-calibre interviews and Fat Albert(ish) animation to deliver an awe-inspiring yet completely sobering account of Fishbone’s tumultuous swim upstream.

“The tough thing about working on a documentary film is that there’s a fine line as to how much filming effects the action,” says Metlzer, of Fishbone’s reaction to being immortalized in celluloid. “In the end you can’t really separate the two, but having a lot of people asking those questions certainly makes the band reflect on things, even when they’re not on-camera. Angelo and Norwood are thoughtful guys, and a lot of the things that came out in the film had been on the tip of their tongues and ruminating in their heads for a while.”

“Sharing these details outside of the self often spurs us on to share even more,” he continues. “What started as a compelling project has become a catalyst. The band is curious to see what happens next. They really loved seeing these interviews; if they had one piece of feedback it was that they wanted to see more of the people. It could have been a 10-hour movie!”

Christine Leonard

Originally published April 7, 2011 in Fast Forward Magazine

Fishbone: EVERYDAY SUNSHINE - video

Kiran Ahluwalia : Exotic Ecstasy and Common Ground

India calling

Kiran Ahluwalia brings the rhythm of Rajasthan to Calgary

by Christine Leonard 

January 29, 2011 

In this age of borderless technologies, scouring the globe in search of exotic sounds has become an internationally favoured pursuit of avid world music lovers and curious musicians alike. Inspired to seek out new rhythms and melodies as she revitalizes her own ethnic traditions in song, renowned Canadian singer-composer-musician Kiran Ahluwalia has plucked some surprisingly connective threads from the tapestry of India and Africa’s mutual musical heritage. A glimpse behind the veil, Ahluwalia’s latest album, Aam Zameen: Common Ground, released via the Outside Music label, reveals the compelling yet largely unexplored intricacies that bind cultures and countries across decades and desert sands.


“I do take in influences from all over the world. I’m not worried about sticking to my two cultures, being born in India and brought up in Canada, if there’s something out there in the world that appeals to me esthetically I use it,” Ahluwalia elucidates. “I’m not about lines and rules and boundaries, and my ears are always open.”


“The first time I saw (legendary Malian musicians) Tinariwen was in 2004 in Toronto at Harbourfront (Festival), and right away, like many people around the world, I loved them,” she continues. 

“Even then, I composed something inspired by them and that composition, ‘Teray Darsan,’ wound up being recorded on my previous album Wanderlust. But that influence wouldn’t shake off of me and I found myself listening to them and other Tuareg groups, and then I met their producer and talked about my fascination. Lo and behold, we started talking about collaboration and it happened. It was exceptional. It was life-changing.”


A fresh take on ancient acoustic mores, Aam Zameen: Common Ground relies heavily on the talents of Tinariwen, which graciously puts itself in the capable hands of Ahluwalia and British guitarist-turned-producer Justin Adams (Robert Plant, Brian Eno). Cross-pollinating her Hindu band with the modern-primitive sounds of these mysterious desert Muslims, Ahluwalia has struck upon a fascinating cultural fusion that has surpassed all expectations. In bringing South Asian and West African artists together in an unprecedented amalgamation of spirit and song, she has found her common ground.


“Tinariwen are a group from the part of the Sahara Desert that falls into Mali and Algeria,” Ahluwalia explains. “These musicians are from a marginalized group. The governments weren’t very good to them, and they’ve had to fight a civil war. So, they’ve used their music to unite their tribesmen to fight a common enemy. Their songs are of political dissent, but also of the actual hardships of life in the Sahara. For me they have a unique music — they’re influenced by American guitar rock, but there’s no need to find a comparative genre in order to understand what they’re doing. They’re more bluesy than anything else.”


Undaunted by the challenges inherent in fully realizing the magic of a studio recording in a live setting, the Juno-winning chanteuse plans to treat her audience to an unforgettable evening. Pairing her cross-cultural explorations with the pageantry of western India’s Rhythm of Rajasthan, Ahluwalia plans to present a vibrant vignette of the Paris, New York and Toronto recording sessions that resulted in the avant-garde Aam Zameen. 

Melding the trance-inducing percussion and guitar of Tinariwen — which famously opened for the Rolling Stones in 2007 — and Tuareg up-and-comers Terakaft, Ahluwalia pilots her ensemble through a wealth of material, including three versions of “Mustt Mustt,” a fitting homage to Pakistan’s ‘King of Qawwalis,’ Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Ahluwalia enjoys mixing things up for the crowd by alternating between Saharan and Punjabi tongues. Whether she’s singing her own original lyrics or those penned by some of Toronto’s hottest Desi poets, her passionate delivery provides ample fuel for an ecstatic experience of global proportions.

“‘Mustt Mustt’ is a classic Pakistani song about Sufi mysticism. It’s not about carnal love; it’s about divine love, spiritual love. We had so much fun recording this song, the first take we did came in at over 11 minutes,” Ahluwalia recalls with a chuckle. 

“We managed to trim it back a bit but included a kinda loungey version and an extended track on the album, as well. With the other Tuareg group, I wrote the lyrics to two of the songs and one I composed myself. I also did a cover of a Tinariwen song with Tamashek words, ‘Matadjem,’ that talks about how to get the Tuareg people to unite, and I paired it with a poem I had written about the partition of India and Pakistan. The song’s message is that you can keep fighting amongst yourselves, but really the world surpasses you. It’s up to us to unite and make a better life for ourselves.”

India Calling: An Evening with Kiran Ahluwalia & Rhythm of Rajasthan at Jack Singer Concert Hall

HOT PANDA: Feeling hot, hot, hot

Hot Panda branches out into new directions

by Christine Leonard

Published December 9, 2010  

Hot Panda's dynamics include lo-fi indie rock, Brit-pop, garage, country and even sprinkles of electronica.

It’s hard to imagine what was going through the mind of Vancouver’s chief coroner, Glen McDonald, when he heard the news that the Second Narrows Bridge had collapsed, taking 19 steelworkers to their watery grave. From the window of a restaurant — where he happened to be eating lunch at the time — he witnessed the destruction firsthand, a ghastly and lethal scene he would later describe in his 1985 memoirs How Come I’m Dead? And, who would have guessed that, 50 years after the disaster, Edmonton’s Hot Panda would stumble across McDonald’s autobiography in a secondhand bookstore, and be inspired to weave a new musical workaround its lugubrious sentiment?

“I think the name really fits with the mood of the songs on the album,” says lead guitarist-vocalist Chris Connelly. “A lot of those lines were written while we were on the road touring Europe and North America. (It’s) the result of not being in one place for any reasonable length of time. The central theme is very much about being forcibly disconnected from places and relationships. That experience of immediate homelessness and just floating between quick encounters is kind of like being a living ghost.”

Recorded, produced and sent to press at breakneck speed, Hot Panda’s spirited offering, How Come I'm Dead?, released in October via Mint Records, came together at JC/DC Studios amidst the jubilant chaos of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. An evolutionary leap forward from its 2007 debut EP, Whale Headed Girl, and the subsequent full-length Volcano... Bloody Volcano (Mint), its latest offering abandons the group’s geographically imprinted garage rock lineage for more expressive lo-fi indie and Brit-pop branches.

Conferring with fellow members — keyboardist-accordionist Heath Parsons, bassist Catherine Hiltz and glockenspiel player-drummer Maghan Campbell — Connelly and co. spice its Big Top major-key romps, rocking solos and country jaunts with a dash of profanity-studded urban electronica, thrown in to enhance and heighten the other elements. Call it the audio equivalent of MSG.

“I’m a sucker for the cohesive, storytelling, full-length albums I grew up with as a child. But it’s tough to gauge how an audience is going to respond to that in this age of shortened attention spans. Bands who go two years without putting something out might as well have fallen off the face of the Earth,” surmises Connelly. “We were a bit hurried in putting the flesh on the skeletons of these songs, and we decided to intentionally leave in the mistakes we made along the way. Not too rehearsed, not too polished, because we wanted it to sound like we were all in the same room at the same time during recording.”

With the majority of its cuts coming live off the floor, complete with all the zits and whiskers, the band’s sophomore effort celebrates Hot Panda’s reclamation of the simple joys of creativity. Emerging from a period of melancholic inertia, Connelly and company agree that Hot Panda’s positive new outlook came along just in time, thanks to the addition of bassist Hiltz.

“The idea was to capture the good energy we have going on these days,” says Connelly. “Since Catherine’s joined the band, things have become a lot more interesting. She’s such a versatile multi-instrumentalist — she’s like a Swiss Army knife! If I say ‘We need a cello here,’ she plays the cello, and so on. It’s great! She keeps it fresh. There’s a real spark to our collaborations now that she’s on board, and I make sure to thank her every day for bringing the fun back into our work.”

Indeed, the foursome enjoys incorporating unexpected turns to its musical voyage, making forays into the country-western landscape to pogo-punk, with plenty of swelling tides of keyboard melody to keep things flowing. Able to boast an unusual skill-set that allows it to pulverise contemporary styles in restless smash-ups, this drone-pop outfit (with a Chinese takeout joint’s name) aims to amuse and provoke in competing increments.

Add to this a zany cover-art photo of a woman riding a camel in stunning Kodachrome-pink and aqua hues, and you have the making of a sleeper hit capable of building suspension bridges between eras and ears.

“That picture was taken of my mom during a trip to Greece in the ’70s,” he says. “She has a copy of the album on vinyl and, my brother tells me that she brings it out to brag to her friends all the time! I don’t know if she’s read much into the meaning behind the title, but she’s thrilled to have that photograph of herself on the cover of an album, because, as she puts it, ‘I look good!’”

Bad Religion: The Book of Caffeine and Naivety

Bad Religion emerging
from the valley of shadows

by Christine Leonard

BeatRoute Magazine, no. 70, October 2010


Having added terms such as “rectilinear,” “Diogenes” and “entropy” to the punk rock lexicon, the band that wrote the book on anti-establishmentarian hardcore has come to a personal crossroads. With some fourteen studio albums ensconced in the hallowed halls of music history, So-Cal rock legends Bad Religion must face their own music and address the burning question they posed to the world so many years ago: quality or quantity?

“It’s always a good thing to venture into new territory. We like to hit the reset button once and while,” affirms founding member and bassist Jay Bentley. “We’re always looking to the next project because we view every album as a plateau: making this record took us into the unknown and that was a huge learning experience. Whenever we put our heads together over a record, things inevitably come down to the question, 'How do you define power?' There’s always going to be another punk band out there who’s louder and faster and is bound and determined to try and prove it. We’re more concerned with sharing ideas. That conveyance can be achieved in many ways and in the end, those interactions are the longest standing. Even things that seem diametrically opposed to one another can be quite powerful."

Fuelled by a lethal combination of “caffeine and naivety,” Bad Religion set off album number fifteen with a bang. Bassist Jay Bentley, along with bandmates singer-songwriter Greg Graffin, guitarist Brian Baker, guitarist Greg Hetson and drummer Bruce Wackerman, celebrated guitarist Brett Gurewitz’s 48th birthday in true punk rock fashion by heading into long-time friend and collaborator Joe Barresi’s studio to lay down some tracks. The ultimate result of their labour of lush, The Dissent of Man, resonates with three decades worth of political unrest and social turmoil with a peppering of midlife pith thrown in for good measure.

“The days of the late nineties were about the deepest valley we ever entered as a band,” Bentley admits. “There were moments when we thought quitting might be justifiable, but going through that experience of being humiliated made us appreciate all the things that we’ve been given in life. That was the point where we knew that we either had to dedicate ourselves completely to the craft or just stop doing it all together. In times of doubt, it’s often best to move along from your comfort zone. If you settle in, you’ll never know what’s out there waiting for you to find it.”

A fitting follow-up to The Empire Strikes First (2004) and New Maps of Hell (2007), both also produced by Barresi, The Dissent of Man is an album that can stand on its own merit despite being dubbed a thirtieth-anniversary release by some punk rock pundits. As far as the band is concerned, this new effort is a fresh attempt at getting closer to the truth behind the fleeting human interactions that motivate them to create their indelible audio art. From the bleak urban unrest of “The Day That the Earth Stalled” to the cathartic mockery of “The Devil in Stitches,” it is abundantly evident that Bad Religion has spent the past three years thumbing the scales in their own favour without short-changing the little guy.

“I believe that we’ve struck that awkward balance between ego and taking pride in our work,” postulates Bentley. “Truly, we are humbled that anyone even pays attention to what we have to say. Finally, we’ve just settled into this area of gratitude and as we move into the future our focus is placed on pure enjoyment.”