LINEUP: Cloud Nothings / L.S. Dunes / Rise Against
DOORS @ 6:30 PM, PST
SHOW @ 7:30 PM, PST
The Sufferer and the Witness is not only the best Rise Against album AND my favorite album in general, it's also just the best album of all time. Which sounds like hyperbolic exaggeration, but if you've ever listened to this album you know it's true.
It is the purest, most Rise Against record they've ever put out. I've listened to it probably a million times, and I'm still not over it. Some people may call that autism (and they're probably right) but I call it masterful craftsmanship and audiophilia. Catchy hooks and dramatic choruses? Fry screams? Octaves? Detailed imagery and political thematics with a touch of everyday despair (and impressively abstract yet poignant lyricism)? You name it. If you're a fan of melody, hardcore, the city of Chicago, suffering, witnessing, or white men with heterochromia, then this album is for you. And if not... what're you still doing here?
⟶ this is objectively the best song to listen and mouth to while walking down the street on a cloudy afternoon. something about suicidal ideation just makes mimicing standing on a rooftop so fun.
Gallery
⟶ Heaven Knows is one of the few songs pre-SSOTCC that has a music video. and even fewer featuring the appearance of (the short-lived) shaggy blonde hair Tim era,, gone but never forgotten
⟶ this song features one of my favorite Tim McIlrath screams ever, which is during the second verse: You're still searching for these answers / They're not inside your wrist! which is also a fan favorite in Rise Against spaces
⟶ i like how Tim calls them Neon grids of cities, instead of just cities
⟶ the first riff of this song follows almost the exact same chords and has an extremely similar progression to another Rise Against song, Survive
⟶ i love how they blend these two idioms in the second verse (Let the blind lead the blind / 'Cause it's eye for an eye in your so called life) into one that both makes sense (and rhymes)
⟶ ive seen interpretations that the song is a post-9/11 anthem. and i think that interpretation is taking the lyrics too literally. it'd be odd for a song called Broken English to make a bush-esque american anthem whilst not bringing up the post-9/11 hysteria at all would be kinda crazy