So, the album I have been anticipating for a good while now has finally come out... though to be fair it wasnt too long ago that I discovered it, and Bad Religion already have so many albums at this point that any new releases are just icing on the cake.
So before I go into discussing the tracks of this album on an individual basis, I will talk about the other details first. As my brother suggested, you should be given some 3D glasses with this so you can see the album art in "Threeeeeeeeeeeeee-Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" though it really wouldn't matter either way. It's interesting that they differenciated from the red, black and white colour-scheme they used for their past couple albums. I always thought that colour-scheme was a reference to their old albums as a "just in case this is our last album we need to reference to their early works" kinda thing. This seems pretty obvious, when Los Angeles Is Burning has the title of their album How Could Hell Be Any Worse? and this especially true on their previous album New Maps Of Hell as not only is "Hell" in the title but the artwork has a very similar dark/sinister theme as How Could Hell Be Any Worse? did. Also consider that the disc itself had nothing but the band's logo on it. Maybe they changed it up for The Dissent Of Man because they no longer believe it could be their last album, or more likely they just think the fans wouldn't appreciate another red, balck and white album. Anyway, The Dissent Of Man's artwork looks a lot like an old science text-book, or more specifially a old biology text-book.
Bad Religion have had a particular structure with their recent albums: fast songs first, slow songs later. The Dissent Of Man only very partially follows this structure, this time there is only one track under the two-minute mark, which is the first track. So that leads me onto the tracks
01. The Day The Earth Stalled
This surely is a fast song to start out with, as they usually use fast songs to start out with. However this song for somereason sounds a bit strange to me. It starts and parts of the song just seem a bit "off", for example when you hear the word "stalled" being sung, it goes all over the place.
02. Only Rain
Decent second song, I would expect a song like this to go somewhere in the middle or towards the end. This song gets a lot of praise though it doesn't work so much for me. Don't get me wrong I do like the song but it doesn't reach that level of "awesomeness" for me.
03. The Resist Stance
Favourite song on the album, really full of energy (which I feel is generally missing from this album). The only song I recall using any distortion on the guitars. Great song!
04. Won't Somebody
Average, seriously, not bad, not great, quite catchy, but not catchy enough.
05. The Devil In Stiches
Now this is a song that proves how time can make songs sound better. This was the first song from the album I heard before the album came out, and I hated it. I even went as far to compare it to Prodigal Son (Gah, I hate Prodigal Son). But after a while I started humming it to myself and I started to like it (I still don't like Prodigal Son by the way, even since 2007 I still think that song's one of their worst).
06. Pride And The Pallor
This song irritates me, not because it's "bad" but because the tune sounds like it's going somewhere other than where it does (after 14 seconds). It sounds like another song before that point but I can't put my finger on it, hold on, I know what it sounds like! it sounds like Victory for the first 14 seconds (I literally just figured it out as I was typing this) and then it just goes away and the rest of the song is "ok" but not catchy at all.
07. Wrong Way Kids
This song has a catchy chorus, with all the "whoa"s they have going . Reminds me of The Bravest Kids by Rancid (maybe the title is the reason there). But yeah, the chorus is catchy and so are some of the verses.
08. Meeting Of Minds
What can I say? It sounds a lot like Germs Of Perfection, and Germs Of Perfection is agreat song, and so is this one, fast, catchy, powerful. It has that Bad Religion feeling to it.
09. Someone To Believe
This song is also catchy, It's one of those songs where the title is a strong element to the lyrics and the melody. I get the feeling that this song will fall under the category of songs that are fun to listen to but will get too critisised just because it's not "deep" and "meaningful". Raise Your Voice! and The Hippy Killers also fell victim to this.
10. Avalon
A strange one, it's not too memorable for me, but I still enjoy it. It's reasonably paced and the melody is decent.
11. Cyanide
Not fond of this one, I can hear the tune to it, but it just doesn't work for me. This song is the longest on the album aswell, why do short songs always seem to sound better than the longer ones?
12. Turn Your Back On Me
Worst song on the album, I just think the chorus sounds rather bland and stale, especially when you consider how strong their music usually is
13. Ad Hominem
Now this is good example of a good slow Bad Religion song. Reminds me of Submission Complete, it has a very powerful beat, the pre-chorus is both catchy and powerful, the chorus itself is still just as powerful. "Powerful" is a good word to describe this song
14. Where The Fun Is
Does anybody else think 21st Century Digital Boy when they hear this song? This song keeps making me want to sing along to 21st Century Digital Boy whenever I hear it. I think this song is pretty decent overall. 21st Century Digital Boy I always found to be a song for people who are new to Bad Religion, so maybe this song will od the same
15. I Won't Say Anything
Oh dear, I can hear the fanboys screaming right now. This song is very poppy for Bad Religion, my personal opinion of this song is that it's "ok", not great but not bad. I do get thrown off by how poppy it is. That being said people critisised Lose As Directed of doing the same thing but I thought that song was pretty good.
16. Finite
Well when I bought the album, I listened to this song and thought.... oh... that's right... I didn't get this song. Yeah, this is a "bonus track" that just doesn't happen to be on the version of the album that I got. I have heard this track from somebody else who hosted it on YouTube but I don't think I should review a track that wasn't on the actual album that I bought. Since I'm reviewing an album that I bought, why should I review content that I didn't get? A message to all the bands out there, stop doing this, it's annoying. Bonus tracks that only certain countries get, they are just pointless and annoying. If a song belongs on an album it belongs on every copy of that album, if it doesn't belong there then don't put it on any of them.
Overall, it's a pretty good album, I would say about "average" for the band (which overall still very good since this is my favourite band), even though there are a selection of very strong tracks. One complaint I do have is that the gaps between the tracks are too long, sometimes they're ten seconds long! That's ok if you're using it for artistic effect or is the song itself is pretty long but these aren't. I would say a couple seconds is long enough. Even better; no gap at all. The first two tracks do this and it works.
