by Michael Mercadante

Created on: April 21, 2009

Veteran punk rockers Bad Religion return this summer with their fourteenth studio album, 2007's New Maps of Hell. It's been three years since their last effort, The Empire Strikes First, and the wait proved well worthwhile. After nearly thirty years together, Bad Religion shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, at 16 tracks, New Maps of Hell is their longest album since 1998's No Substance.

The first track, "52 Seconds", is exactly that long, and is probably the hardest track on the record. It's a great way to open the album, and a great track for the insomniacs out there to set their alarms clocks to - this one will definitely wake you up in the morning. Best lyric: "I'm a monkey with a madding affliction / With fact checking for a mental condition". "Heroes and Martyrs" is an anti-war song along the lines of Recipe For Hate's "All Good Soldiers" and "Portrait of Authority", although harder and faster than both. Pounding drums and guitar propel lyrics such as "An ultra-violent call / Summoning both poet and thrall / Sweet catalyst for the acolytes", with Greg's voice run through a level of distortion to feed additional energy into the song. Track three is "Germs of Perfection", seemingly anti-industrialism with lyrics like "Clip the wings of progress turn the direction / Enrich the fallow soil with germs of perfection".

"New Dark Ages" is one of the stronger tracks on the album. Bad Religion's trademark "ooh's-and-ahh's" harmonies are in full effect on this one, which also features some of the best drumming on the album (cheers to Brooks Wackerman). "New Dark Ages" is an anti-organized-religion offering, similar to The Empire Strikes First's "Atheist Peace" and Against The Grain's "Faith Alone". Track five is "Requiem for Dissent", a political call-to-action song similar to "The New America", from the 2000 album of the same name. The stand-out quality here is the repeating choral chant of the word "Requiem". It's catchy, and fits the band, but also seems to recall 80's metal. The album continues with "Before You Die". Every once in a while, I listen to Greg's lyrics and think he's suddenly channeling Jim Morrison. A perfect example of this is "As you ruminate the hopeless sands of time / did you wander out your days lost and resigned? / Or recreate the universals in your mind?". Forty years ago, these might have been lyrics to an unreleased Doors song. But in the hands of the guys in Bad Religion, the song warps from hippie rhetoric to fierce punk rock.

"Honest

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