Nowadays, in case you didn't know on account of maybe you were killed in a bus explosion back in 32 and only just got thawed, what has been happening of recently is that everybody with a guitar and some drums wants to shout about "the politics".
Sometimes they don't even have guitars, and maybe just one of those boxes everyone's so keen on that make all sorts of noises and repetitive beats and so on. They might wanna "scratch" about the politics instead.
Everybody you ever heard of and also loads of people you haven't heard a damn thing about in your life, all these folks and even more are clambering over themselves to write a song about "This is what I think of the politics up to and including fuck Bush and so on". Even Bob Dylan got in on the act, with some song about The Times Are Changed or something, or about something Blowing Through The Wind. Don't worry if you haven't heard these tracks, I think they only came out about a week ago or less.
But one bunch a folks have been making noisy songs about "politics, you sons a bitches" for the duration of their career, and that bunch a folks are none other than the fine punk ensemble Anti-Flag, the folks behind the just-released DVD, Death Of A Nation.
What Death Of A Nation concerns itself with, is being a live video, primarily. The bulk of the proceedings are taken from various concerts here and there, or maybe album release parties and the like, and so we get to enjoy classics like Angry, Young And Poor and Fuck The Flag before a whole bunch of different audiences, and with wildly varying sound quality.
The sound quality is, I must admit, pretty atrocious throughout these live renditions. To be honest, it only really becomes apparent when you click on the special features bit and grab the video for, say, Turncoat, and realize that they actually sound pretty poppy, even using acoustic guitars now and again. Until then, somebody might well assume that these motherfuckers are some kinda deranged industrial outfit, like maybe The Revolting Cocks or The Pigfaces.
Aural quality aside, though, these live shindigs are spectacularly frantic affairs. More than once, The Duke was sure some Scanners-esque head-explosions were about to commence, given the amount of effort these fellas put into singing about "Criminal with protection of the law!" Veins bulge on their necks, their faces go purple. The drummer grins throughout. It's all very impressive.
The DVD as a whole, in fact, is pretty impressive, with plenty of behind the scenes tomfoolery, most of which manages to be ridiculously entertaining. The making of the Turncoat video, for example, is much more fun than the already quite grand promo itself. We learn, amongst other things, that not only do these fellas wanna get discussing some motherfucking documentary or other off of PBS the second they open their eyes in the morning, but also that they enlisted a local homeless fella to star in the piece in question, getting to hold up signs in a Subterranean Homesick Blues stylee.
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