Against Me! - The Disco Before The Breakdown

I've talked about a lot of really obvious, popular, bands on here recently (Descendents, Lemuria, Minutemen, etc...), but what's one more?
In the year 2011, the fans of Against Me! have become totally stratified by the band's musical progression - there's the assholes who bitch that Against Me! sold out, abandoned their values, and should be pariahs; then there are the assholes who gripe whenever an old Against Me! fan claims their new shit sucks, retorting that they're just afraid of progression, that Gabel would have never written another "Walking Is Still Honest" anyway, and that they're closed-minded for not boogieing to "Thrash Unreal". I kinda straddle the divider. Against Me! didn't take a crash course into commercialism (their slow progression over 3 albums as testimony), they just eased in and turned their back on their anarchist values in exchange for a more plush lifestyle. I can't say I don't understand the pressure to do so, but it's not exactly relateable. Of course, now they're just lame arena rock on Warner Bros, so it's hard to feel anything other than indifference at this point.

Anyway, this EP is the bridge between their raw, folky, first incarnation (Reinventing Axl Rose, the self-titled, Acoustic EP, and the brilliant Crime As Forgiven By) and their more rock/post-punk centric second phase (As The Eternal Cowboy, Searching For A Former Clarity), and is their first release not to contain any reworked tracks Tom wrote beforehand. The result is an unfortunately brief 3-track mash-up between the two aforementioned phases, and is easily one of the best items in their catalog. As The Eternal Cowboy is an album I like well enough, but it contains none of the scream-your-throat-raw, intensely emotional, anthemic heights that everything preceding it did. Disco Before The Breakdown sounds like what Against Me! could've been like if they kept these elements in their sound while progressing into a more rock-oriented unit... or at least, the first two songs do. The third is your typical, poorly recorded, acoustic solo track with Gabel doing his thing (which is great in it's own right), and each song's lyrics are really top notch.

We drank bottled water together and talked business.
I think I played the right moves.
You were lookin' over my shoulder,
as I went through the motions of another night,
And it was alright,
'cause I thought I knew who everybody was just by lookin' at them.
My heart is anywhere but here,
and how tired I was from the past couple of weeks,
From the past couple of years.
Well, it hit me all at once,
On a balcony overlooking nothing,
With snow falling all around,
Well I, I called just to say "Goodnight".
And you hadn't done anything wrong,
And know, really, really, it's me not you.
I can't believe how naive I was to think things could ever be so simple,
And can you live with what you know about yourself,
When you're all alone, behind closed doors?
The things we never said, but we always knew were right there.
It's got me on my knees in a bathroom,
Praying to a God that I don't even believe in,
"Well, dear Jesus, are you listening?
If this is the one chance that really matters,
Well, don't let me fuck this up.
If you'd told me about all this when I was fifteen,
I never would have believed it."

I can't stress enough though how un-fulfilling this EP can be. Not because it's full of dud notes or wasted space, but simply due to the lack of an accompanying 10 or 11 tracks. This is the kind of band Against Me! really should have "sold out" into - a super solid rock band with folk leanings and blistering vocals and anthemic, soaring, choruses. I'm always glad when I listen to this that I wasn't aware of these guys when this EP first surfaced, or I'd have been pretty damn let down by it's follow up (which is again, a decent album anyway).

try it
then
fuck it, Against Me! have enough money

Also, the first song has a horn! Wheee! I can't remember if it was a guest or not, but it doesn't really sound out of place (or ska-esque).