The arena-rock sensibilities of the title track and Sounds Like is blatant but effective, as the sort of necessarily wide-reaching canvas for lyrics and a performance as massive as these are. and Monarch, there’s a bit more of a regular punk bite that’s appreciated, but by now, Rise Against’s bread-and-butter is well-known, and they’re still great at pulling it off.
The sound doesn’t hurt either, mind, even with a lack of retooling that, to be perfectly honest, has never really been needed. Maybe he’s not a raw as he once was, but in the booming, immediately comfortable tone that he’s developed, there’s just such an appealing presence to it all that really fuels a lot of why Rise Against albums still work as well as they do. A song like Forfeit might be the now-customary stripped-back song that’s always done well for them, but there’s still a lot of heart within it, and even after so many years, McIlrath’s voice is yet to fall victim to any significant wear-and-tear. It’s similarly trodden ground as before, but you never get the impression that Rise Against are spinning their wheels or running out of ideas, such is the vigour and – crucially – believability they’re imbued with. Moreover, it hits the notes of stoicism and perseverance that Rise Against so regularly excel in, in the bursts of intensity to rise up on Sudden Urge and stand firmly against lobbied hate and injustice on Monarch. It’s a bit odd to hear 42-year-old Tim McIlrath put himself among the titular ‘nowhere generation’ on the title track, when so much of that narrative is skewed towards young people who’ve been disenfranchised for so long finally having a voice for change, but it’s also on a chorus that hits like a truck every time, and putting himself among the other side on Sooner Or Later and recognising the need to face the consequences of their actions does even things out a bit more. It’s worth noting, before all else, that Rise Against’s populism is, and arguably always has been, their most defined feature, and they’ve reached a point this far down the line where it can easily subsume any criticisms of broadness or lack of specificity that might feel trite coming from other bands. It’s less a case of being charitable, and more of recognising where Rise Against thrive most of all, condensed into an album that isn’t their best or a classic-in-waiting, but leans into its strengths to a very pleasing degree. It’s the Rise Against formula but with a bit more oomph and muscle than their latter-day material tends to have, and that’s definitely noticeable even if it doesn’t leap off the page. Yes, it can easily fall under the banner of ‘just another Rise Against album’, and it doesn’t have a late-period stunner like People Live Here to affix its appeal to, but Nowhere Generation is more self-evidently strong across the board. That’s effectively what Nowhere Generation is too, albeit in a less dismissive tone than the previous statement might imply. As a result, the expectations for Nowhere Generation are somewhat restrained Rise Against have their formula now that they won’t deviate from, and the most recent track record would indicate a solid enough album that hits all the right notes to get past the finish line, with little to nothing else. Like it or not, Rise Against are an older band in the scene now, and while that isn’t an immediate deflection of criticism (especially when a band like Against Me! that’s actually older sound no less fired up), it makes sense for their focus to be on the bigger picture nowadays, regardless of how compromising to their punk ethos that might seem overall. Even if recent efforts like The Black Market and Wolves haven’t persisted as readily as what came earlier, it’s more a result of changing approaches opposed to any sort of mellowing out or, God forbid, ‘selling out’. That mightn’t sound very exciting – in fact, it sounds like the complete opposite considering what albums like Siren Song Of The Counter Culture and The Sufferer & The Witness were to 2000s punk – but it’s also worth considering that Rise Against’s standard is generally higher than most. They’re probably past the point of making amazing, visceral-to-a-fault punk music like in their early days, and have instead settled into a routine of a solid enough approximation of that every few years. The best way to describe Rise Against at this stage would be ‘reliable’.
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