Anti-Flag is an institution and a treasure of American punk rock. The kind of band we need more bands to emulate and follow in 2018. After two very good albums of anthemic, activist pop-punk the band has mined for almost 30 years with American Spring and American Fall (both Spinefarm), the question is where to go next? The band chose to switch things up and have made an all acoustic album from the best of their last two albums and some well-chosen covers for American Reckoning. Although the “punk goes acoustic” isn’t new or a trend, it’s a good way to re-imagine these tracks the band is not quite done with yet.

Right off the bat, it’s refreshing to hear these songs stripped-down. You can see how much effort and talent went into writing them to begin with since they still work. One can’t help think of a Social Distortion vibe here, which is fine by me. Not much drumming to be found at all, just crisp acoustics, smooth bass guitars and amazing singing. The band has always been tight live, but some of their harmonies get lost behind a wall of sound. Not on this album.

The tracks blend well, with the best being ‘Trouble Follows Me’, ‘American Attraction’, ‘Set Yourself On Fire’, the epic ‘Brandenburg Gate’, and ‘Racists’. If you hear the latter track, and you are not emotionally riveted, you might, in fact, be a racist. In this setting, the song is even more raw and poignant.

The record closes with three interesting covers. Covering John Lennon’s ‘Gimme Some Truth’ is a good call since it’s a deep cut from Imagine. More straight up punk rock now with the full band, it almost seems like it should have always been a punk song. The Buffalo Springfield cover of ‘For What It’s Worth’ is fine, but it’s been done a lot. It might be fun to hear this live. The closer is a rousing cover of Cheap Trick’s ‘Surrender’, complete with a little nod to That 70s Show in the coda. Justin Sane, doing his best Robin Zander is flat-out amazing. Pretty mint.

This is a good stopgap release while Anti-Flag reloads for battle with their next release.

7.0/10

KEITH CHACHKES