REVIEW: Rise Against - End Game

Rise Against
Endgame
(out of 5)

When you hear a Rise Against album, you are instantly grasped by the first track and taken on a journey to the end of an album. You are made aware of what messages are being put across. You are connected to the band through the meaning behind their politically-influenced music. The band’s latest release, Endgame, is no exception to this.

Ever since the band was established in 1999, they have built a name for themselves through their speed based punk-rock and over the 12 years Rise Against have been producing music, they have released albums that have proved that punk is far from dead.

Endgame is the 6th full length release from the Chicago based group and, much like the bands 5th release Appeal to Reason, is mellow in comparison to the bands earlier records, which leaned more to the hardcore. Keeping with the mainstream style set by Appeal to Reason, Endgame mixes mainstream with their much edgier and heavier musical capabilities, makes the audience aware of the world’s problems and creates an atmosphere that the listener can enjoy, whatever genre they are a fan of.



Being a huge Rise Against fan for many years, my expectations for this album were high. Having spent the majority of my high school years listening to the band and knowing what they are capable of achieving, I had a feeling that Endgame would be an album that I could listen to over and over again. After the first listen I was hooked and my expectations were realised.



Lyricist and frontman Tim McIlrath explains that the idea of the album is to “try to attack the world’s problems, but with a different approach... it's a subconscious effort to really think about that world that someone would rebuild after the mistakes of our civilization, and maybe we can look at that and try to apply those lessons to our present day”.

The first track, titled ‘Architects’, blends the best of both times in the bands career, the hardcore years and the punk-rock years, and grabs the listeners attention and sets the tone of what you can expect to hear in the rest of the album. With the following tracks, ‘Help Is On The Way’, ‘Disparity Of Design’ and ‘Satellite’, hold your attention in true Rise Against fashion. These tracks mix it up from hard rock to soft rock to full on punk.



Rise Against - Help Is On The Way

One of the standout tracks on the record is the 3rd track, ‘Make It Stop (September’s Children)’, a song written about homophobia. McIlrath has stated that the song was written “to make sure that anybody from any walk of life is welcome at our shows; and if something like homosexuality is something you condemn, maybe you're not welcome at a Rise Against show, either... After the wave of gay teen suicides, I really felt like something needed to happen; and this was one way we could put water where the fire was”

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Rise Against - Make It Stop (September's Children)

Endgame sees a change in the band having an acoustic track on their album. The past 3 records have all included acoustic tracks, such as ‘Swing Life Away’ from the 2004 record Siren Song Of The Counter Culture, 'Roadside’ from the 2006 record 'The Sufferer And The Witness’ and ‘Hero Of War’ from 2008's Appeal To Reason.



Endgame is an album that once you start listening to it is hard to stop and is a record that any fan of rock music will enjoy. 


By Christopher Reive