What’s the Point?
After their unremarkable, but successful, latest album American Spring, released only this past May, Anti-Flag have returned with a new record that isn’t exactly new. This latest record, Cease Fires, is a collection of re-recordings of earlier songs that were originally compiled and released between 2013 and 2014 through a series of six 7” splits entitled 20 Years of Hell, featuring two of their old songs and then two from another band. Cease Fires also features a few extra previously unreleased tracks. While there may be some value in this for the Anti-Flag fanatic in your life, and of course a CD is more accessible than a handful of 7”’s, one may likely left wondering ‘what on earth is the point of this?’ far before the record has reached its end.
Cease Fires opens with one of the previously unreleased tracks, “Coward in my Veins” which actually just increases the confusion about the point of this record. It’s a perfectly good song and proof that Anti-Flag can still create the kind of songs that drew people to American Spring and has helped them maintain a fan base over the 20 years that they’ve been a band, so why not focus on that instead of re-recording old music? In an interview with Alternative Press, vocalist and bass player “Chris No. 2” even states that a re-recording of an old song will never be as good, that you’ll never be at the same place in your life that you were when you first wrote and recorded the song, so why are they even trying? This point is driven home not too long from the start of the album with their re-do of “Kill the Rich.” Their is definitely something ironic about a band with as much success and name recognition as Anti Flag doing a flashier, better sounding punch up of a song like that, and any punk edge it may have had 20 years ago is lost in the mix. Cease Fires ends with “Close My Eyes,” which appeared for the first time on the last 7” in the 20 Years of Hell series, which once again is a more interesting song than any of the rerecorded tracks, a reminder that if Anti-Flag is going to choose to keep playing music, they should focus on the new and not the old.
Fans of Anti-Flag’s rougher sound on albums like Die for the Government won’t find much to cling to on Cease Fires, and it’s doubtful that this will rope in any new fans but fans of American Spring looking to hear older material without the edge should look no further. The rest of us are left to wonder what the next step will be for Anti-Flag.
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