Bad Religion: The Dissent Of Man

Album No.15 from pioneering LA agit-prop punks.

By Gavin Martin
( Classic Rock )
published

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With an ever- changing and volatile lineup, Bad Religion’s three decades

Dissent… finds them (finally?) settled, marking the first time the band have kept the same lineup for four consecutive albums. The dividends are obvious. The Resist Stance is an exhilarating salvo of everything that made Bad Religion great, sky-scraping guitars launched at breakneck speed, cross-patterned harmonies and a combative/uplifting lyric.

The ebullient mood, a miraculous merging of their hardcore chops with bursts of light and musical colour, is let down by the derivative Turn Your Back On Me and the cliché-bound Where The Fun Is.

Thankfully, tying up the album’s concept in fine style, I Won’t Say Anything drops molten guitar honey on a sun-kissed LA backdrop, Greg Graffin riding the whirlwind with a force and conviction echoed by his cohorts. Amen.

Gavin Martin
Gavin Martin

Late NME, Daily Mirror and Classic Rock writer Gavin Martin started writing about music in 1977 when he published his hand-written fanzine Alternative Ulster in Belfast. He moved to London in 1980 to become the NME’s Media Editor and features writer, where he interviewed the Sex Pistols, Joe Strummer, Pete Townshend, U2, Bruce Springsteen, Ian Dury, Killing Joke, Neil Young, REM, Sting, Marvin Gaye, Leonard Cohen, Nina Simone, James Brown, Willie Nelson, Willie Dixon, Madonna and a host of others. He was also published in The Times, Guardian, Independent, Loaded, GQ and Uncut, he had pieces on Michael Jackson, Van Morrison and Frank Sinatra featured in The Faber Book Of Pop and Rock ’N’ Roll Is Here To Stay, and was the Daily Mirror’s regular music critic from 2001. He died in 2022.