Reviews

The Unraveling is my all-time favorite CD. You can probably guess how the rest of this review may sound just from that. This is not to say that I hate the other Rise Against efforts; in fact, I really like Revolutions Per Minute and like almost all of Siren Song Of The Counterculture as well.  They just don’t quite stack up. 
 
In this cd there is an urgency to the lyrics, a desperation in the intonation that is found plenty on RPM and sometimes on SSotCC, but not in every word the way it is on the Unraveling.  The departed Dan Precision’s guitar-work is still present here, chunky metal-sound playing melodic, fast hardcore and punk.  He has an incredible talent for breakdowns, as any 88 Fingers Louie or Break the Silence song can attest, and this effort screams.  Tim’s voice has never been as believable and as angry on any other rise against cd, confined now to the furious Killing Tree side-efforts.  This cd has fast songs, slow songs, heavy songs, poppy songs, screaming and singing, triplets and octave solos.  It has everything I ever have looked for in punk or hardcore.  I still listen to it constantly, years later, and although I’ve worn out two or three disks, it hasn’t gotten old yet. 
 
In addition to the original cd, this has two bonus tracks.  the first, join the ranks, was on a Fat compilation years ago, and the second, Gethsemane, was also buried on a compilation some time back.  Both are good songs, if a little superfluous to the flow of the cd, coming after the last song winds all the way down from a slow building breakdown with two fast songs.  They are good incentive to get this however.  Also, this is a remastering, and the levels have been tweaked a little bit.  Personally, I like the old version, because as you may notice, it is very dear to me.  The new version has Tim’s vocals turned up, the bass less twangy and noisy, and the cymbals a lot clearer.  It doesn’t mess the sound up at all, and fans of RPM and Siren may like this version better.
 
Either way, this is a great CD.  If you don’t already own the unraveling, shame on you, go fucking buy this.