Anti-Flag  
Terror State

Fat Wreck Chords
Released Date: October 21, 2003

Terror State, Anti-Flag’s sixth album, is an all out protest of the American government and G-Dub himself.  Unlike a lot of bands jumping on the anti-Bush/down-with-the-government bandwagon, Anti-Flag has been bitching since their humble beginnings and continue to on Terror State.  The only difference is that Terror State is a hell of a lot better than most of Anti-Flag’s previous works.

Terror State starts out with one of my favorite tunes from the disc, “Turncoat.”  Like most of the songs from the album it’s about none other than George W. Bush.  You may ask, “I can’t understand what the hell Justin Sane is singing about and even when I can he uses words more complex than my vocabulary can handle.  How the hell do you know what the songs are about?”  Well, luckily, the booklet contains all the lyrics and in-depth meanings of the songs.  I think that’s pretty damn cool.  The album takes a little mellow (well, mellow for Anti-Flag) break with “Post-War Breakout.” Woodie Guthrie wrote the words and it’s still a strong song today.  About half way through Terror State lies track 7, “You Can Kill The Protester, But You Can’t Kill The Protest.”  This was definitely my favorite song from the disc.  If you’re a music-downloading junkie who won’t spend a dime on a real CD, download this song. 

Overall, Terror State is a strong album that will keep you listening and playing the air drums the whole way through. The whole entire album features cool guitars, awesome bass riffs, kick-ass drums, and passionate vocals.  By the way, Chris #2 sings more song on this CD than any other Anti-Flag CD.  I love Justin Sane’s voice, but this was kind of a nice little chance and mixed up the album more.  Ever since I got my hands on A New Kind of Army, I’ve had a respect for Anti-Flag.  Sure, I respect their great skills of playing and writing catchy, yet pissed off songs, but I also respect the awesome sound that all of their albums since A New Kind of Army seem to have.  I’m sure Anti-Flag get a lot of shit for being as big as they are and sounding as good as they do now, but you’re a fucking moron if you think once a band polishes up their sound and comes out of the studio with a good sounding record that they sell out.  Maybe with Tom Morello as the executive producer on Terror State, the abundance of posers wearing  Anti-Flag T-shirts, and a music video for the first track, “Turncoat,” Anti-Flag did sell out, but don’t let that stop you from picking up this record. Terror State rocks and could be one of the best albums of last year.  Anti-Flag still kicks some serious ass.

 XROXX ALBUM RATING:  XXXX  (4 X's out of a possible 5 X's)

Charly Hogeboom
charly.hogeboom@XROXX.com