On this CD, 26 bands have come together in order to try and raise political awareness, and serve justice by getting that dangerous, irresponsible, idiot son of an asshole out of power. We have known that NoFx feel strongly about George Bush for some time now and they have now released this CD – so hopefully some good will come out of it and we will see some change in the Whitehouse – preferably in the form of a brand new president.
There are some very big names that have come together for this CD – as you look down the track listing you notice such bands on the bill as NoFx, Descendents, Pennywise, Ministry, The Offspring, The Ataris, Less Than Jake, and even Sum41. In the past, Sum41 have had a lot of stick because of their success – but new song ‘Moron’ shows that the band can rock out with the best of them as it is a really strong track and should soon shut people up who have labelled them as ‘corporate sellouts.’ There are some extremely strong tunes here and from a variety of different genres – proving that it is not just the Punk Rock scene that cares about the current political state of affairs. Anti-Flag make a superb contribution to this CD with track ‘The School Of Assasins,’ which has some serious bite and will really get your Punk Rock juices flowing. Anti-Flag are a super band and this track is further proof that they are one of the best Punk bands around at the moment. Ministry also stake their claim in the CD with their fantastic effort. This one really goes down a treat as it is always good to hear the heavy vibes of Ministry and they sure are sounding heavy on this one. RX Bandits make their contribution to the CD with ‘Overcome (The Recapitulation.)’ This is a nice, catchy little reggae number that shows off the band at their best. I am not always a fan of the band but this really is a storming contribution and really works well on the CD – giving a nice mellowed out feel mid way through the listing.
Some bands on the CD however really fail to impress or capture your attention whatsoever. The Ataris for example, sound like they have recorded ‘Heaven Is Falling’ in the bathroom. They may be quite famous but that doesn’t mean that they can produce crap and people will lap it up – they don’t seem to grasp the fact that in order to keep peoples respect you have to work for it. Another one, which disappoints is Offspring track ‘Baghdad’ as it is just a bit of a shoddy re-recording of one of their old tracks. I think that they probably could have done a lot better on this one and was quite disappointed with what I heard from them as I was looking forward to listening to what they had to offer but it just didn’t work for me. Less Than Jake are given the honour of leading the CD to a climax so the opportunity is there for the taking for them but they just seem to mess it up. It is a good track, but they have re-recorded it with the guest vocals of Billy Bragg – his voice really doesn’t work well with the Less Than Jake vocals so you get a bit of a cringeworthy effort in this one as what should be a good track has been spoilt by incompatibility.
So, for the most part this is a pretty amazing CD with a huge array of bands coming together for a good cause! Don’t be put off by the bad tracks as there are really plenty of other tracks to float your boat and in buying this CD you will hopefully be doing the economy a bit of good. So, lets put up a united front against George W Bush – please join me in being the proud owner of the ‘Rock Against Bush – Volume 1’ compilation CD and make sure you play it loud and proud.
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UK based film graduate with a huge passion for music, sports and video games.
