Rise Against - Wolves (June 9th, 2017) Album • Page 8

I think they branched out way more than most pop punk bands during their career. There's tons of variety on their albums starting with The Sufferer. The tempo changes, the different time signatures, their plays on dynamics and constantly switching between melodic hardcore, catchy pop punk, anthemic alt rock or plain hard rock on few songs... idk I'm really surprised when I see people say this is more of the same because I don't hear that at all.

 

I don't even get the joke haha

 

I don't think this criticism is fair, given it's Rise Against and they're basically our generation's Bad Religion. How much more does a band have to change? I feel like as long as their message stays at the forefront, that's all that matters. There's a certain point you hit in a punk band where repetition is just gonna happen.

 

I wonder who How Many Walls is about

Is this the first Rise Against album in a while without a token ballad?

 

I mean, I don't want to get essentially the same album over and over. Not sure what's unfair about that criticism. Punk or not, I lose interest with lack of variety and I don't think that's unreasonable.

 

It is! Was very surpised

 

I was just joking that you're usually in the ATL thread and I didn't expect you in here das all

 

They aren't releasing the same album over and over though that's kinda hyperbolic and just flat out wrong. Idk what you'd want from them they're fairly dynamic for a punk band (heavy, fast, acoustic, atmospheric, normal rock, etc) and lyrically Tims always branched into a lot of different topics. I mean I do "get" what you're saying to an extent though

 

Well, given that we usually disagree about this sort of thing, I'm not surprised at all - we've talked about bands like Bayside and TWY, whom I think either haven't evolved whatsoever or haven't evolved enough, respectively. This album had some songs I enjoyed while listening to them, but overall if you put on a Rise Against song from any of the last four albums, I couldn't tell you which one it's from. All of the songs on here sound exactly the way I would have expected Rise Against songs to sound before putting on the album, which I guess is appealing for some but uninteresting to me.

 

I guess I just don't understand what you want them to do? Like, those bands have DEFINITELY evolved as far as songwriting goes, and I think we can both agree "evolve" doesn't necessarily mean "improved" but that's more subjective, and just because they're still writing rock/punk songs like they always have doesn't somehow correlate to the music being bad. I totally get you or anyone not liking the bands mentioned or any other band/artist that doesn't necessarily try a completely new sound every record, but idk there's this undertone of "well they haven't incorporated new genres so it's inauthentic music" and I know you're not saying that necessarily but I see that a lot

 

When a band sounds similar on too many consecutive records, more often than not they start to have finishing returns for me. It's not that the songs they're writing now are necessarily worse than the ones they wrote before, they're just too similar to occupy any sort of meaningful space for me. Naturally, the songs that I heard first are probably going to be the ones I like more and the ones I reach for if I want to listen to the band. The bottom line is that they're not doing anything different enough for me ever to be interested in listening to the new material rather than the albums I've been listening to for years already. This doesn't apply specifically to Rise Against per se, because I've never been a huge fan, but it absolutely does to bands like Bayside and NFG (and I'm sure there are more I'm not thinking of).

There are some bands that change "just enough" each time they release an album to keep me interested and excited about new material. JEW, Yellowcard, Thursday, MCS ... those are a few examples, there are plenty more. Obviously I like some of those bands more than others, but I can safely say I've never had complaints like the one I just described about any of them. The bands I've mentioned that lose my interest are the ones that, to my ears, have failed to reach that benchmark.

 

I guess it just boils down to your tolerance of repetition? For me if the lyrics are still well written and the music is still good I can bypass an artist sticking to their guns and staying in their wheelhouse. Like I don't expect a band to renovate their sound every album or even expand. Of course I like and appreciate when that happens if the end results are good. Idk just an interesting discussion

 

Hey I ended up listening to this


I had lowered my expectations going into this and ended up enjoying it a decent amount, probably more than their previous 2 albums. I don't think they'll ever hit the high point of Siren Song/Sufferer for me but with the proper expectations they can still do some stuff.

 

I think I'd be fine with that too if they were still improving and releasing stuff that does their basic sound better. I realize I'm sorta contradicting myself here, so I may have to walk back my statement that not evolving enough = diminishing returns no matter what. While I think that's generally true, I do think it's possible for a band to not change very much over their career and still keep writing better songs on each release... it just almost never happens that way, imo. Honestly, the only band I can think of right now that's currently writing their best music while still releasing albums that sound exactly the same is Silverstein. All the other bands in this "samey" category either eventually find little ways to stretch themselves creatively, or they get stagnant. At this point I'm talking in circles, but I hope I made my point.

 

Fair enough

 

I don't think Endgame had one

 

Depends on how you're defining Wait For Me.

I'm having another listen through of the album now, gonna write up my thoughts after since I'm stuck at home ill.

 

Yeh neither did their first two I don't think.

 

The best way to describe this album is that it perfectly summarises the paradox of Rise Against being a band forged in the Chicago hardcore scene who also really like writing softer, more emotional songs.

...I'm not sure where it fits in, though. The lyrics aren't as biting as Black Market but it is more consistent. It's good to hear Tim scream again but sometimes it's unnecessary (Far From Perfect is a good example). Most reminds me of Appeal.

 

Wanting to listen to this for a bit before posting random thoughts.

I agree with everyone who said the bonus tracks should have been on the album. Sucks for anyone who didn't get it from Best Buy since they are two of the best tracks.

Megaphone should have been the opener. I've grown to like Wolves a lot, but it would have maybe been better placed as track 3. I really like that cool guitar part in the bridge of Wolves, is that their first attempt of a guitar solo in one of their songs?

Politics of Love is probably my favorite off the album and I think Mourning in Amerika is the only really weak track on here.

The ending of Miracle ends super abruptly with like 2 secs of really loud feedback. Kind of jarring, esp if you don't have the bonus tracks and the album just ends like that lol.

 

I agree. He does it a on a few songs, but always just screams the last word at the end or the bridge. It's great to hear, but since it's so random and abrupt it doesn't really fit well with the song and becomes a little jarring.

 

That last bonus track song does sound like it could fit on Sufferer-ish era so that's pretty cool. Wish it wasn't a bonus song.

 

I agree The Black Market had some of Tim's best lyrics I think. I really love the song's Methadrone and The Black Market.

Damn Megaphone and Broadcast[Signal]Frequency are such jams...why did they not have them on the album?!

 

Since I got curious: charted at #9 in the US, 29k sales of which 27k were "pure" i.e. not streaming. (#38 in the UK)

Down quite significantly from Black Market which was at #3 with 53k sales, but still pretty good.

Reckon it could have had more with a better release - still no music video for the lead single...

 

I'm actually surprised Black Market did that well.