Album Review: The Dissent of Man by Bad Religion

A fine addition to their cannon First things first: Bad Religion’s 15th (!) album sounds like all the other 14. Depending on whether you think that’s a good thing or a bad thing will largely define whether or not you buy ‘The Dissent Of Man’ because, let’s face it, they’re not reinventing the wheel here (they invented it 22 years ago with ‘Suffer’, give them a break). Nevertheless, the likes of ‘The Resist Stance’ and ‘Someone To Believe’ burn with righteous anger and the energy of a band half their age.

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It's difficult to overemphasize the significance of Bad Religion's recent 30-year anniversary. Punk rock is, generally speaking, a young man's game, and Bad Religion has been at it well past what one may have assumed was its sell-by date. The surprising thing in it all, however, is how consistently the band has managed to create solid and worthwhile records, somehow never becoming a parody of itself despite marriages, children, professorial status, balding, and general old age.

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On Bad Religion's 15th album in 30 years, the stage opens with a sentimental but roused Greg Graffin reminiscing, “Do you remember when we were young?/Adventure had no end/Those were the days, my friend,” to recall the melodic blast of their early years. Still, even die-hard fans recognize the lack of trajectory for the band; the first album ruled, and if you like the mid-career songs, the late songs are pretty much the same. Producer Joe Barresi (Queens of the Stone Age, Tool) attempts to add range with some midtempo pop/rockers like “The Devil in Stitches,” "Won't Somebody," and “Cyanide,” the latter with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell on slide guitar.

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Album number 15 follows a post-millennial streak of “back to their heyday” stormers. Alex Deller 2010 It’s a fair testament to their dogged perseverance that these legendary SoCal punks must’ve outlasted just about every spiky-haired teenager they ever inspired to risk life and limb on a skateboard or pester their parents to drop them off at a Warped Tour gig. Along the way they’ve weathered pop punk’s many peaks and troughs, seeing the wax and wane of early peers like the Adolescents and the Circle Jerks, signing to a major label with roughly a bajillion others in the post-Green Day boom of the 90s, and playing understudy to a slew of snotty unit-shifting whelps they laid the ground for.

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