An unusual trajectory, that of Bad Religion. They debuted in 1982 with “How Hell Can Be Any Worse?” in the name of the most uncorrupted and incorruptiblehardcore Californian hardcore, penning anarcho-generational anthems like “We're Only Gonna Die” and “Fuck Armageddon… This Is Hell” with the rebellious rage of eighteen-year-olds. Nothing about that debut - undeniably raw, if furious - hinted at the unexpected direction the band would take just a year later. “Into The Unknown”, more than a leap into the unknown of its title, was a leap into forbidden territory: the Descendents having drinks with Black Flag secretly listening to mainstream rock and Alan Parsons Project, the punk that flirted with progressive and even science fiction, in breathless flights of intergalactic synthesizers and lyrics inspired by Kurt Vonnegut. As kitsch as it was courageous, “Into The Unknown” stabbed punk in the back, while at the same time pushing its antagonistic spirit to the max, displaying an unmatched philosophical consistency: if everything had to be sent to hell, then first and foremost one had to send oneself - one's own convictions - to hell too.
Having filed away, in this sense, one of rock's most successful failures, singer Greg Graffin and guitarist Brett Gurewitz - the original core of Bad Religion - had to lose themselves in quite the identity crisis, since they didn't release any records for a full five years. Just one EP, in 1985, tellingly titled “Back To Know”, as if to say: “let's get back to what we're about and what we do best.” Namely, kicking ass. Once they found their way again, Bad Religion - now settled into a five-piece with Greg Hetson on second guitar, Jay Bentley on bass and Pete Finestone on drums - tackled the album format again in 1988, and did so in grand style. “Suffer” was their first masterpiece as well as the opening chapter of an incredible trilogy, closed in 1990 by “Against The Grain”. Bad Religion were a band reborn: hardcore's unstoppable rhythmic fury had taken over again, harmonic rough edges hadn't been entirely banished, but their music was now infused with a love of melody unprecedented in such an uncompromising genre. A minute, a minute and a half - the average song length; lyrics offering deep, informed socio-political analysis, with no concessions to easy populism; crescendos and epic choruses expressing the joy of revolt. Disobedience is beautiful, if done with full awareness: that is the one commandment of Bad Religion.
Of Bad Religion's golden trilogy, “No Control” is arguably the best entry. The masterpiece among masterpieces. Not only because, as the wise say, “virtue lies in the middle” (a rather un-punk, dangerously moderate proverb) but also because it sounds like a collection of national anthems for stateless outcasts, a handbook of social prayers written by non-believers who believe only in humanity's capacity to respect one another and live together in a shared regime of harmony, solidarity and justice. An anarchic take on the most authentic Christianity; it seems absurd applied to a hardcore band with a whiff of atheism about it (in truth Graffin has always described himself as a naturalist, a kind of humanist who believes in relationships rather than institutions) but - in terms of content - that's exactly what “No Control” resembles.
The fifty-four seconds of furious utopia that open the album call for a shift in perspective: “Change Of Ideas” appeals to the noblest revolution of all, that of consciousness. No violence, except for the explosive kind wielded by ideas (and music). It brings to mind Pasolini, when he said that the true revolution is living as if the revolution had already happened. Across its fifteen songs, “No Control” sets out to spread a gospel: whether it's a wish for universal peace (“I Want To Conquer The World”, which hurls orgasmic guitar slashes skyward) or a warning to humanity sinking into the quicksand of materialistic vanity (“The World Won't Stop”, the virulent rodeo that closes the album).
Between dissonant collapses (“Sometimes I Feel Like”) and heartfelt appeals in the shape of near-ballads (“Sanity”), the Gospel according to Greg Graffin dispenses ethical precepts and life lessons. So while “Henchman” urges us to keep our backs straight in a social-climbing society that would have us all as yes-men, “Progress” warns against lowering our guard in the face of progress's ambiguous promises, while “Automatic Man” reaffirms the centrality of resistance - human resistance even before political resistance - in a world where the great powers work toward our slow depersonalization.
This is music that knows how to touch the soul, this Bad Religion sound, because it's as forceful and gripping as only melodic hardcore can be, yet it goes well beyond its simple, direct form: it's the punch that wakes you up, the slap that forces you to rethink the relationship between the self and the world. And the reflection that follows takes on surprisingly Christian overtones once again in tracks like "It Must Look Pretty Appealing" and "Anxiety", which address the most widespread "disease" of modern capitalist societies: anxiety - about living, about feelings, about the compulsion to appear as something other than what we are (the despair of not wanting to be oneself, as a believing philosopher like Kierkegaard would put it).
Without slipping into "revisionist" readings or, worse, giving in to hollow provocation, framing music that seems to have already revealed every facet of itself from a wholly new angle is never a pointless critical exercise. Applying this approach to "No Control" makes it possible to grasp - as already hinted - doctrinal affinities with some of the core values once carried by the word of Christ, regardless of how the ecclesiastical establishment later manipulated it throughout history for purposes far removed from the spiritual. Proof that Bad Religion's music isn't inspired by the Christian concept of Redemption comes, paradoxically, from the two tracks most steeped in "millenarian" urgency: the sonic arsenal of "Big Bang" and the choral howl of "No Control". Catastrophe is underway, and there will be no spiritual salvation, no God's mercy to console us: mankind is destined to go extinct through the entropic forces inherent to its own nature. A merciless, unappealable verdict, issued while quoting, between the lines, geologist James Hutton ("there's no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end") and the Big Crunch theory, which posits that, in some distant future, the universe could implode.
These twenty-eight minutes of music, which thrill and revel in the sheer feral force of sound, thus carry profound political, social and philosophical meanings, however compressed into an almost bare-bones musical format. Nothing to do, in short, with the epigones to come - Rancid, Offspring and Green Day - who, with all due respect and affection, are at best only a pale parody of Bad Religion for bored teenagers.
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16/03/2014
This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Salvatore Setola, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.
Tracklist
- 1. Change Of Ideas
- 2. Big Bang
- 3. No Control
- 4. Sometimes I Feel Like
- 5. Automatic Man
- 6. I Want To Conquer The World
- 7. Sanity
- 8. Henchmen
- 9. It Must Look Pretty Appealing
- 10. You
- 11. Progress
- 12. I Want Something More
- 13. Anxiety
- 14. Billy
- 15. The World Won't Stop
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