AGAINST ME! HAVE GOT THE 'TRANSGENDER DYSPHORIA BLUES'

Florida punk-rockers release sixth studio album, recruit Fat Mike (NOFX) & play a blinder...

 

Against Me! - 'Transgender Dysphoria Blues - out 21 January 2014 on Total Treble

Against Me! have never been shy of expressing their political views, but a whole album focussed around transgender issues? Do we really need that? Well, yeah actually we do. A recent article in the LA Times quoted a fairly terrifying statistic. 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide at some point in their lives. Domestic abuse, homelessness, discrimination of all kinds- much of the nasty, nasty shit human beings perpetrate on one another for no good reason is heaped doubly high on those who identify as transgender. So if Laura Jane Grace, formerly Thomas James Gabel, wants to write a collection of songs about it, good. It's about time someone did. Politics aside, the track
Talking Transgender Dysphoria Blues can stand up with the best Against Me! can offer. It's loud, dirty, and could certainly be performed live with their usual excellent blend of tuneful shouting and folks doing bad, bad things with guitars.
FUCKMYLIFE666 is better than the name suggests, and
Black Me Out will have you singing something highly unsuitable on the bus to work. It will happen. Be told. There has also been a line-up change since the last album (NOFX's Fat Mike was called in to lend a hand in the studio), and recording this took a while- it was announced way back in 2011. According to an interview in NME, it was re-recorded twice. Fair play, it probably wasn't easy and if it took that long to get right so be it. This stuff is what punk should be, and I cannot wait til Against Me! tour the UK and we get to see a few hundred punks singing along and jumping up and down, giving Laura Jane Grace the sweaty, shouty love she deserves for producing an album this brave and this good.
Rating: 8/10

 01. Transgender Dysphoria Blues

02. True Trans Soul Rebel 03. Unconditional Love 04. Drinking With The Jocks 05. Osama Bin Laden As The Crucified Christ 06. FUCKMYLIFE666 07. Dead Friend 08. Two Coffins 09. Paralytic States 10. Black Me Out

COMMENTS