Album Review: Anti-Flag – 20/20 Vision

You can argue that it was almost inevitable that a beleaguered American president – whose voice opens this album, reminiscing wistfully about the days when protesters could be roughed up –  and hoping to be re-elected would start trading missile attacks with his perceived enemies far away. At a time when the Western nations are sleepwalking back into lowest common denominator politics, subtlety and considered social narratives are lost amongst soundbite headlines and shouting. I mention this not for partisan purposes but to underline that there has probably never been a greater need for Pittsburgh PA’s Anti-Flag to bring their resolutely political message to the masses.

They’ve been doing it since the tail end of the Reagan era, a time which now even hardcore progressives might recall fondly as a kind of Republicanism that was at least understandable, if as ruinous and divisive as the current flavour. Anti-Flag have never been anything other than implacably opposed to those conservative values. Arguably, the band is a protest movement for whom the music industry provides a platform and not a group of musicians with a political outlook.

With 20/20 Vision, the band have produced a manifesto that is both urgent and rousing. Their vitriol is undiminished and if anything, there’s an extra urgency to these powerful jabs at the alt-right and the neo-fascists now propping up the American establishment. There’s no sense that the will or energy to protest has dimmed at all. So what does this chapter of Anti-Flag‘s protest sound like? Well, it sounds fucking ace. With titles like Christian Nationalist and Un-American, it’s unlikely these songs will get the exposure they deserve beyond those predisposed to like Anti-Flag and their politics. And that is the great shame, because this is an album of fine, fine punk music that roars and thunders but is also full of nuanced and beautiful moments. Unbreakable is a particularly upbeat and singalong anthem. In an odd twist, it’s the breezy folk rock of Un-American that is my highlight track and it underscores very subtly that protest music can whisper as well as shout. Closing track Resistance Frequencies, which opens with a crackle and howl of feedback, quickly morphs into a jaunty, horn section-led, offbeat stomper that’s also a heavy-duty call to action. So it’s business as usual for Anti-Flag: the band Green Day probably wish they were.

 “20/20 Vision” can be pre-ordered and pre-saved via Spinefarm Records here and a limited run vinyl variant can be pre-ordered via A-F Records here. The single Unbreakable with its accompanying music video that was made in collaboration between Anti-Flag with The Critics Company, a collective of young filmmakers from Nigeria, was released in December last year and can be viewed below.

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