Good Riddance - My Republic

Genre rock Publisher Fat Wreck Chords External Links Official Good Riddance Website Official Fat Wreck Chords Website

Good Riddance's seventh full-length album is a reunion in many ways. Bringing Sean Sellers back into the lineup on drums as well as reuniting with producers Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore (Rise Against, NOFX, Anti-Flag) was an undoubtedly wise move. While the album shows the band sticking with their So-Cal brand of punk and political messages, the result is an energetic album that, while not extraordinary, has a number of good, standout tracks.

Good Riddance wastes little time before launching into an overt political rant against George W. Bush. "Texas" succeeds where other protests songs fail in that it isn't preachy, just easy-tempoed and to the point with lines like, "All of the lies that you propagate/You've raped the charm from the lone star state." It's difficult to miss the message but listeners still won't feel like they're being bludgeoned to death by sermonizing.

Occasionally, the album veers towards clichés such as on "Torches and Tragedies." What saves the song from agonizing sentiment and redeems lines like "We tip the fragile scales of temperament and guilt/too soon mistaken for the will that makes us strong," is the sheer speed with which they race through the song. Lucky for listeners that when Rankin and Luke Pabich were writing the song, they didn't try their hands at writing a ballad. The need to pogo madly with such a song might cause someone to miss lines like those.

Rankin hasn't limited his song-writing repertoire to politics and lightens the mood a little on songs like "Boise." The track may not quite be to the liking of fans that prefer their punk with a little less infused pop, but, like it or not, it's catchy. "Uniform" has a similar feel to it although it veers back towards rants at authority. While it might not be a welcome comparison, the message of the song will probably appeal to fans of Good Charlotte's "The Anthem" and Green Day's "Minority" and it's easy to envision as a battle-cry for adolescents who feel they don't fit in with the status quo.

Overall, My Republic has some appealing qualities for the band's efforts. Clocking in at only 28 minutes doesn't give Rankin and crew a whole lot of time to salvage things had they gone seriously awry, but the rare times they do go off-track are easily redeemed by their successes.