In the opening and title song on Against Me!'s new album, "New Wave," Tom Gabel sings, "Come on and wash these shores away/ I'm looking for the crest of a new wave."
The 10-song major-label debut from Against Me! is exactly what it needs to be: solid from start to finish, containing at least three singles and not sacrificing Gabel's revolutionary tongue.
Gabel's finished trying to please the underground punk scene that embraced Against Me! for years. He's done worrying about the level of success his band could achieve.
"Everyone has a choice to not listen," Gabel told Caliente in March.
The Gainesville, Fla., foursome Against Me! was the toast of DIY mohawk-types for years for its folk-punk before that popularity found them balancing demand with independent ethos.
The group switched to bigger indie labels but, after much thought, signed with Sire Records, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. The move caused revolt and confusion among the band's older fan base, but it's a natural progression for an unstoppable act.
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In his conversation with Caliente, Gabel sounded like anybody who hits a ceiling in his or her career — you have to keep growing or risk stagnation and self-resentment.
And in the end, stay true to yourself.
More than any other lyricist in recent memory, Gabel, a longtime Bob Dylan fan, doesn't waste or withhold a word when it comes to turning the mirror back on society.
"I would be lying to you if I did not say something," he sings on "Piss and Vinegar." "That would make me feel like a politician."
With frankness and unbridled passion, Gabel's gruff, throaty voice examines a barfly past her prime ("Thrash Unreal"), frustration with the music industry ("Up the Cuts," "Piss and Vinegar"), the apathy of our citizens during wartime ("White People For Peace") and the hubris of America ("Americans Abroad").
The group's last album, 2005's "Searching For a Former Clarity" on Fat Wreck Chords, still retained an indie roughness, but you could hear in the songs all it was going to take was the right treatment.
"New Wave" producer Butch Vig, responsible for Nirvana's "Nevermind," to which the new album has been unfairly compared, makes Against Me!'s already strong choruses just explode in ways only hinted at before.
There are some misfires, like a tepid love song with Tegan of Tegan and Sara, "Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart," and the murky "Animal."
Overall, "New Wave" is a refreshingly honest statement in a time where there's much to say, but few voices.
How punk is that?
2007 records you should own by now
• "Neon Bible," Arcade Fire.
• "Sound of Silver," LCD Soundsystem.
• "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank," Modest Mouse.
• "Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?" Of Montreal.
• "Icky Thump," The White Stripes
• "Anytown Graffiti," Pela.
• "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga," Spoon.
• "I'll Sleep When You're Dead," El-P.
• "Return of the Mack," Prodigy.
• "Sedation Nation," The Deludes.
• "Only Child" EP, Mostly Bears.
