Review - The Sufferer and the Witness by Rise Against (2006)

Review by myslef taken from The Socialist issue 510

If the Siren Song of Counter Culture, Rise Against's previous album was anything to go by then the Sufferer and the Witness would be a fantastic album, and it doesn't disappoint.
The bands trademark double-time, emotionally rousing style comes through in the album's first song, Chamber the Catridge. The song, like others in the album focuses on two issues that are high in the conciousness of young people, war and the environment. It ends with the lyrics
"Can we be saved, has the damage now been done.. what's mine was always yours and yours is mine," highlighting the damage done to the environment.
In Bricks, the band conveys the anger of many young Americans:
"the lives our buried sons have laid won't cancel debts we've yet to pay"
and
"we run off fumes of injustice, we'll never die with the fuel that you give us"
The lack of a future for young people is conveyed again later, thorugh the lyrics
"the drones all slave away, they're working overtime, they serve a faceless queen. They never question why... but we have bills to pay, yeah, we have mouths to feed," in the intense song Drones.
All in all, the album is a fast paced emotive one, and an album I would definitely recommend to punk rock fans.