Bad Religion – The Dissent of Man

Bad Religion - The Dissent of Man

I like to play a game; it’s called “Let’s Pretend [Band] Doesn’t Exist After [Year]”. I play this with the obvious ones, Against Me! after 2007 (New Wave wasn’t awful), Weezer after 1996, but I’ve recently added a new one, Bad Religion after 1994.

Since 1996’s The Grey Race, Bad Religion’s releases were nothing but a nuisance; an obvious attempt at a band missing its glory days. But after hearing 2010’s The Dissent of Man, it’s even more apparent the band hasn’t released anything worth its weight in nickels since the criminally overlooked 1994 release Stranger Than Fiction.

It’s really, really bad. From me as a 14-year-old mohawked, hardcore punk-poseur who thought How Could Hell Be Any Worse? was a holy document. It was to the faux-sophisticated Chomsky-reading 16-year-old punk that loved Suffer; Bad Religion was one of the bands that got me into music. That’s why it kills me to admit they have lost their footing and fell flat on their face.

All of the factors that once made them an exciting beacon of punk intellectualism are here in a seemingly parodied way. The thesaurus riddled lyrics that once came off as honest (“All of neurons are functioning smoothly, but still I’m a cyborg just like you”) have been replaced with pretentious rhetoric, like that of “Ad Hominem.” (Who makes a song about a logical fallacy?) Their signature “oozin’ aahs” now fall short and generic after every 90’s Epitaph and Fat Wreck band aped the technique. Even a star-studded guitar ensemble (they have three guitarists!) with members of Minor Threat and the Circle Jerks can’t save this record. The guitar lines sound like b-sides of Against Me!’s equally dreadful 2010 release, White Crosses. Plus, they’re really old. No one wants to see their UCLA teacher shouting about the government. The only bandmember that’s not in his bowling years is their new drummer, Brooks Wackerman, from scene-kid favorite The Used, whose incredibly bland drumming hearkens back to the annoyingly fast, click- filled style of NOFX’s Smelly.

I’m probably ranting, but this record just hurts. It’s like I just found out Santa, Jesus, and the Easter Bunny don’t exist all at the same time. Please retire guys, I don’t know if I can take another sub-par album from one of the bands that defined my adolescence.