He is probably the artist for whom the term “Americana” was most properly invented. And his music has defied easy categorization, slipping seamlessly between wide varieties of country music, jazz, and American standards. He has simply been here so long it seems he has always been here doing what he does. At this point already, the unbroken length and quality of his career is almost without precedent in American music. He is an icon, yet many people will still be shocked at the depth and profundity of his body of work. Someday, when the world finally loses Willie Nelson, there will be an eruption of sadness. With a surprising mix of beauty, rebellion, and a hardcore attitude, it’s bound to make fans proud. On a whole, The Sufferer & The Witness is strong, hard hitting, and original. Because of this, the listener can walk away with a good feeling from any song.
Rise Against, in The Sufferer & The Witness at least, manage for the most part to maintain a strength in each song which contrast the weaker parts for example, strong verses to divert attention from a mediocre chorus, excellent guitar work where vocals lack, superior vocals delivering trite lyrics. Songs like “Bricks” and “Chamber the Cartridge” are enough to give us old Pennywise fans nostalgia, and others such as “Injection” and “Prayer of the Refugee” hit hard but leave an impression more simply than having been shaken. Just before this song is “Roadside,” a slow, almost experimental piece with beautiful string and female vocal accompaniment. Almost too slow for any kind of general public recognition, it hits the listener like finding a twenty in a comfortable new pair of pants. The crown comes close to the end with “The Good Left Undone,” a piece which successfully uses the band’s talents for both hardcore and melodic form of punk, and shows off the surprising versatility of vocalist Tim McIlrath’s scratchy voice with a mixture of non-grating but forceful screams and softer verses. This is a shame, because there are several truly good songs on this album. Even the guitar work is so dull and commonplace that this song could have no place except perhaps on MTV and radio stations that a call themselves “the WAVE.” As a background song on the CD, it is tolerable, almost enjoyable as the pushed feature, however, it’s just not up to par. In the case of “Ready to Fall,” it’s one of the most emo, self centered, lyrically immature songs of the album. As the band’s first single written and produced under Geffen, it follows the pattern of many of today’s songs singled out as representations of the entire album, and is little more than a tainted and conformed version of what the music was meant to be about. The album’s first single, “Ready to Fall,” is almost depressingly decent. The Sufferer & The Witness follows the same line. It is a compilation of songs of society and relationships, ranging from nearly pure punk to almost emo, and everything in between. Their most recently written album, Siren Song of the Counter Culture (Geffen, 2004), was responsible for three Billboard standing songs.
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This, along with the novelty they present in sound and ideas, has earned the band a place at Geffen Records, on the Billboard charts, in the movie Lords of Dogtown, and in the CD collections of a generously growing fan base. Now, seven years after its creation, Rise Against have released their fourth album, The Sufferer & The Witness. In the time they’ve been together, the band have matured nicely in terms of genuine musical ability and creativity. Don’t be fooled, however, although emo-ism is kept at a safe level throughout many of the songs, Rise Against have given us a fair number of relationship-centered/fairly tragic songs. Growing up in the late 90’s wasn’t easy for a little band in a big marketplace luckily for Rise Against, they saw through the current fad of musical negativism and sought to bring a more positive feeling to their music, letting the world know that rebellion and depth don’t have to go hand in hand with despair, and defeating emo’s fault of simple, self-centered blind sadness. From their mother, they learned ways to cut out the melodic monotony so common in hardcore bands, and poetic, significant lyricism. From their dad they received a need to rebel, a social awareness, and a hardcore cutthroat basis for their sound. This halfling is an example of musical evolution at its best, the infusion of some of the best aspects of two contrasting genres. This is where the little half-breed band Rise Against was born. Imagine if you will, a happy little Chicago family punk father, hardcore mother, and big brothers like Pennywise, Braid, and Bad Religion.
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