Thursday, July 9, 2009

Angry revisions

I have to plead guilty to underestimating the strength and dynamism of my own province. When Sampson left Propagandhi to form the Weakerthans I kinda figured he would be taking all the creativity and talent with him, leaving Propagandhi as nothing more than an angry Pennywise: doomed to continually repeat themselves.

I should know better than to think so low of a fellow Toban. Propagandhi released their latest, Support Caste, in March and I'll admit, I didn't hear a note of it until yesterday when Jesse spoke magical words of my head exploding and various bodily fluids finding glorious exodus from my body. Jesse didn't disappoint either. He doesn't usually, but every now and then he'll throw me a bone that ends up being a hardcore band which not even a mother could stomach (though, do many hardcore moms REALLY appreciate their son's music?). But I digress.... he was right about this.

Incredibly right. Jesse had compared the transformation the boys had made since Potemkin City Limits similar to Mastodon's shift between Blood Mountain and Crack the Skye. What I didn't realize was that Jesse's choice of bands would be fitting; Propagandhi no longer sounded like the droning, angry punk band which I was getting bored of. They had started to incorporate elements of metal, hardcore and prog into their music... and I liked it. Sure, they still had the odd drag 'em out, no frills, angry punk rock song... however this time, the album was rounded out by some of the most complex songwriting I've ever seen from a punk band (if you can still call them that).



-Dave, wherever you are, I hate you