Anti-Flag
Lies They Tell Our Children
SPINEFARM
It would be easy to lose faith. So oppressive and exhausting are the forces of capitalism that the fight for a better world can seem fruitless. Humanity has doomed itself in favor of letting the oligarchs and neoliberalism win—especially in the US, where the two-party system offers only the illusion of change so that those on either side of the aisle can line their pockets while the working class suffers. It’s such an age-old story that everything playing out in the world right now was predicted in the 19th-century writings of Karl Marx, which remain as pertinent as ever.
To that degree, Lies They Tell Our Children, the 13th studio album from Pittsburgh politipunks Anti-Flag, is not just the band’s latest collection of songs. It’s also a culmination of everything they’ve been singing about—all the ills of the imperialist machine they’ve been raging against—since forming back in the late-’80s. These 11 songs examine the issues plaguing modern American life as a result of the country’s hyper-capitalist framework (chiefly the desperate need for universal healthcare, especially some three years into a deadly pandemic, and the country’s contributions to the extinction-level threat of climate change), but do so from a historical, systemic perspective. You could call this an album of and about dialectical materialism. Marx would be proud.
That’s not to say that these songs are bogged down with complex political theory. They might not be as direct as, say, “Fuck Police Brutality” or “You’ve Gotta Die for the Government”—two of the most relevant tracks from the band’s 1996 debut—but neither do they pull any punches. It starts with the melancholy sway of “SOLD EVERYTHING,” which outlines, in its brief 91 seconds, the inherently destructive nature of American capitalism, before giving way to the fractious intensity of “MODERN META MEDICINE.” In the first of this record’s many guest appearances, it features a rousing vocal contribution from Killswitch Engage’s Jesse Leach as it viciously attacks America’s inhuman for-profit, corporation-led healthcare system.
Elsewhere, Tim McIlrath of Rise Against and Bad Religion’s Brian Baker both feature on the rip-roaring “THE FIGHT OF OUR LIVES,” Campino from German punks Die Toten Hosen guests on the defiantly uplifting call to arms of “VICTORY OR DEATH (WE GAVE ’EM HELL),” and Pinkshift’s Ashrita Kumar lends vocals to “IMPERIALISM,” making an already urgent song even more vital. Those contributions—plus cameos from Silverstein’s Shane Told, songwriter Tré Burt, and Bad Cop/Bad Cop’s Stacey Dee—create an important sense of unity that runs through this album from start to finish.
Despite how fucked everything feels, there is still hope, and there always will be so long as there’s solidarity and empathy. Just look at the recent union successes in both the US, which has seen workers take on corporate behemoths like Starbucks and Amazon and win, and in the UK, which has seen union leaders unite for what is essentially a general strike in all but name. Lies They Tell Their Children is the musical embodiment of that hope, of that desperate need for class consciousness to emerge and initiate a class war. It’s a soundtrack that defies the terrible nature of the history and circumstances that inspired it, offering something productive, restorative, positive. Because as long as the people stick together, the capitalist, imperialist American empire will collapse. Solidarity forever.
