Surprisingly Good Religion

I haven't cared about Bad Religion since the early 90's. By the time the Recipe For Hate album was released in '93, I couldn't have cared less for what this band was doing. I'd drop in every now and then to see what the band was up to, downloading The Empire Strikes First and New Maps Of Hell, but after few spins I'd tuck them away and they would be forgotten. When I heard that Bad Religion was releasing their sixteenth album, True North, this year, I didn't give a shit.

Soon after the release, some friends on Facebook started posting about how great the album was. Still I resisted. I held firm to my belief that the album would be a yawn inducing bland-fest, and I continued to ignore it. Yet, the positive reviews kept coming in, and unable to withstand the pressure any longer, I downloaded the album with a glimmer of hope that it might actually be decent. I didn't expect much, so it was a complete surprise when I found that the album was quite good. Of course it isn't going to touch Suffer or No Control, but I'd probably reach for True North over 1992's Generator.

Yeah, there were a few different colored vinyl pressings for the album, but with the convenience of having the album for sale at my local record store, I decided to just grab the black vinyl copy.