Anti-Flag
have been explicitly political punks from their earliest days, so the political themes of their eighth album,
The Bright Lights of America
, are entirely to be expected. What's different about this effort is not its topicality but its ambition and artistic reach: in some ways, it's the Pittsburgh band's equivalent to
Green Day
's
American Idiot
. Produced by, of all people,
Tony Visconti
, one of the grand old men of British rock record production best known for his work with
David Bowie
,
is a crystal-clear, razor-sharp album that never falls into mere empty bombast. The sound of the album is its first surprise: the distortion, overdriven amps, and lo-fi haze one expects from this style of punk are entirely gone, and orchestral overdubs and even a children's choir make appearances throughout these 13 songs. The second surprise is how these aspects serve to enhance the band's musical sensibilities rather than obliterate them. A solid set of spunky, powerful punk tunes complete with fist-in-the-air choruses, anchored by the title track, which may well be the band's most immediately catchy tune ever,
would sound like a complete sellout move were it not for how unflinchingly lead singer
Justin Sane
's lyrics stick to the anti-consumerist and antiwar critiques that have been the band's lyrical lifeblood from the beginning. It's tough to consider a song like
"The Modern Rome Burning"
as an attempt to court the teenybopper set. The neat thing about
, however, is that it sounds good enough that some of the
Good Charlotte
crowd might end up hearing it anyway. ~ Stewart Mason