Description
Bad Religion – The Empire Strikes First – Vinyl Record
The opening “Overture” takes a minute to set the room before “Sinister Rouge” comes charging through it. Bad Religion uses that change of scale well on The Empire Strikes First, a 2004 record that gives its short songs a larger setting without softening their attack. “Social Suicide” follows quickly enough to keep the start from settling into ceremony.
“Los Angeles Is Burning” has a strong enough chorus to carry the song on a first listen. Give it another pass and the connection between disaster and spectacle comes through. Mike Campbell contributes guitar, adding a detail from outside the band’s usual circle to a song that already knows exactly where it is going.
“Let Them Eat War” puts another voice into the argument. Sage Francis’s guest passage has a different cadence from Greg Graffin’s singing, and the difference helps the song’s account of war and class hold attention. The album’s political concerns also surface in the harder questions about belief in “Atheist Peace” and “God’s Love.”
There is a fair amount of space between the punch of “The Quickening” and the slower burn of “Boot Stamping on a Human Face Forever.” The latter borrows its title from Orwell and has time to let its threat sink in. “Live Again (The Fall of Man)” follows with one last melodic lift.
This Epitaph vinyl edition contains the fourteen tracks from the original album. The wide range of tempos and textures gives the songwriting a chance to breathe. It is still the tightly articulated Bad Religion of “Social Suicide” even when a guest voice or a longer arrangement changes the sound around Graffin.
Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic
Track Listing
- 1 — Overture
- 2 — Sinister Rouge
- 3 — Social Suicide
- 4 — Atheist Peace
- 5 — All There Is
- 6 — Los Angeles Is Burning
- 7 — Let Them Eat War
- 8 — God’s Love
- 9 — To Another Abyss
- 10 — The Quickening
- 11 — The Empire Strikes First
- 12 — Beyond Electric Dreams
- 13 — Boot Stamping on a Human Face Forever
- 14 — Live Again (The Fall of Man)
