Where it ends
awesome photo shamefully pilfered from Ross Costigan Photography
Some super exciting news that I have yet to address here: new Strike Anywhere this year! Squeeee!
The VA punks are moving from Fat Wreck Chords (can we stop calling it that yet?) to hardcore staple Bridge 9 after releasing the catchy-as-heck Dead FM. I love that album for a lot of reasons, but you needn’t go further than the first track to really get the gist of what the band and their appeal are all about.
Frontman Thomas Barnett writes songs based on the politics of everyday life, informed by their pro-labour, pro-human rights, anti-government ideology. They write about the broken treaties that have nearly killed off American Indians, the abuses of power perpetrated by police, and the religious and political hypocrisy, deceit, and oppression that continues to harm average people despite centuries of seeing what evil they have wrought. But “Sedition” takes their already-personal songwriting to another level.
As Barnett revealed in interviews at the time of the album’s release, his grandfather was a pipefitter in Tennessee, one of thousands of average working men, tradespeople, involved in a secretive government project in 1942. They were not given the details of what they were working on, not told that they were indirectly involved in a project designed to enrich uranium. They had no idea their contributions to the Manhattan Project would eventually be responsible for killing thousands of people, helping create the building blocks of atomic weaponry. No one bothered to tell them.
They also weren’t told there was radiation emanating from the project. Its likely that radiation was responsible for the cleft lip and palate both Barnett and his father were eventually born with. Numerous surgeries later Barnett became the enraged punk rocker he is today; he credits the U.S. government’s deceit and callous disregard for the well-being of their own countrymen and those that technology would eventually be used on for fostering the political discontent that drives him today.
The lasting memories also made “Sedition” a difficult song for him to write. It’s nearly impossible not to swell up with emotion at the song’s conclusion when Barnett insists the legacy unknowingly foisted upon his family must end with him. Is it a plea for fate to spare his own progeny from similar physical and spiritual challenges or is it a promise to avoid procreation altogether in order to ensure it doesn’t happen? Given the anguish so plain in his voice I’m inclined to think even he doesn’t really know for sure.
Iron Front is due out October 6th.
Earlier albums are available through their Merch site and Fat’s webstore. Shit’s pretty cheap.
