ANTI-FLAG - For Blood And Empire [RCA – 2006]

With song-titles like “The Press Corpse”, “The Project For A New American Century”, “Hymn For The Dead”, “The WTO Kills Farmers”, and “Depleted Uranium Is A War Crime”, and the fact that these guys are good friends with Tom Morello (Earlier in Rage Against The Machine and now in Audioslave) you could easily think that this is one of those political punk bands. And it is.

I first heard Anti-Flag back in 2003 when they released “The Terror State” on Fat-Wreck Chords. I thought they were pretty good and I bought the CD.

Now, about three years later, Anti-Flag sounds pretty much the same (even though they are now signed to RCA). Musically it goes from some “The Clash-territory” songs to some harder/faster HC-punk songs. The lyrics are anti-war, anti-media and anti-WTO etc, etc. It’s pretty straight-forward stuff. As you can see up in the left corner, the cover shows a cemetery outside of the White House. The booklet is filled with essays about the stories behind the songs and links to different sites on the internet. I haven’t checked them all out yet, but it seems pretty interesting, if you’re in a “there’s so much wrong with the world today-mood”, and not some “I’m so lonely and I just got my heart broken by a selfish girl that I still want to be friends with-mood”. Then you can go listen to some emo-band. (I’m just kidding kids, there’s nothing wrong with that).

But, if you enjoyed “The Terror State”, like I did, you will not be disappointed. “For Blood And Empire” is a pretty good album as well. There’s nothing really special on this album but it makes me kind of happy just listening to it, and sometimes that’s all you need.

And love, of course... No, I’m not a hippie.

If you want to hear some songs by Anti-Flag and make up your own mind about them and their music go to:
www.myspace.com/antiflag or www.anti-flag.com