Children Already Belong To Us

A friend of mine alerted me to the fact that Propagandhi have a new album coming out this October. It's titled Potemkin City Limits and the cover-art is by Eric Drooker. Their label, G7 Welcoming Committee, has already kindly made one song available for download:

Propagandhi - "Die Jugend Marschiert"

My first thought is that it's not as immediate or aggressive as the majority of their back catalog, but that's just a trite summary of my initial reaction. Besides, what it lacks in impact it more than makes up for in ambition. Their humor is certainly undiminished. Listen closely, the lyrics are actually (I'm guessing) a fictitious speech made by one Colonel Casey Wardynski, who has some fucked-up ideas about America. For starters, as director of U.S. Army's Office of Economic and Manpower Analyses, he personally oversaw the creation of "America's Army", the official video game of the U.S. Army. Homeboy came up with this shit to lure teenage boys into the army. You see, while your favorite band is sitting around writing ditties about their sack-of-shit lives and inability to get laid, Propagandhi are writing to expose pricks like Wardynski. I agree, it takes all kinds, but songs like this certainly put things into perspective. More power to them!

It'll be interesting to see what the rest of Potemkin City Limits is like, especially whether or not it maintains this trend of longer songs with more ambitious arrangements. It's all the more difficult to know what to expect considering that Propagandhi haven't released an album since 2000's Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes. Granted, Propagandhi usually have a longer than average gestation period, but with all that's happened in the last four years I'm sure the wait has felt longer than ever for fans. Makes me wonder what they've been sitting on.

Here are two of their older songs, for comparison's sake:

Propagandhi - "True (Concrete Blonde)"

Propagandhi - "Back To The Motor League"

The first song is from 1998's Where Quantity Is Job #1 and the second is from the aforementioned Today's Empires. See what I mean with my less immediate, less aggressive comment? Propagandhi have always been informed, but the new song sounds so measured compared with these two.

Visit Propagandhi's website for more information, or visit their G7 page for upcoming West Coast tour dates.