This isn’t a coming-of-age album; it’s a coming-of-self album.
For a band like Florida Panhandle punk rock group Against Me!, music has always been about bringing out raw emotion that’s not afraid to sound ruthless or slightly cacophonous. Since the band’s 2002 debut LP “Against Me! is Reinventing Axl Rose” defined the group by its angst-filled choruses, honest lyricism and throat-scratching yells, frontman Tom Gabel has not been one to stray from controversial candor.
But the newest incarnation of Against Me!, the band’s sixth studio album “Transgender Dysphoria Blues,” is something quite different, as the title suggests: Tom Gabel is now Laura Jane Grace.
“Transgender Dysphoria Blues” is the first full-length LP released by the punk rock veterans after frontwoman Laura Jane Grace’s coming out as a transgender woman.
As the album begins, however, with rolling drums, crunchy guitars and Grace’s first lyrical yell on the title track, it’s clear that Against Me! has regained its classic punk rock sound after departing from it in recent albums, including 2007’s “New Wave.” “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” not only formally reintroduces the frontwoman Grace, but also may very well stand as an epic album for the band as well as the genre, despite its brief 29 minutes of chomping tunes.
From the opening track, “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” refuses to hold back; Grace spends ten quick and to-the-point songs detailing her identity struggles. But there’s no need to break out the acoustic guitar. Grace yells and spits just as much venom as ever behind her seasoned electric guitar; this time, the album’s lyrics are pointed directly at her struggles to come out as a transgender woman, told often in a third-person narrative that incredibly opens up the album for all ears and experiences.
Grace refuses to back down from the curt sincerity customary to her music, beginning the album with the line, “Your tells are so obvious/ Shoulders too broad for a girl” and later in the track, repeating the lyric, “You want them to see you/ Like they see every other girl.”
From the title track, the album roars into “True Trans Soul Rebel,” which was released as an acoustic single in July 2013. The song is not only the most personal of the album, but it’s also the most lyrically chilling, as Grace sings, “You should’ve been a mother/ You should’ve been a wife/ You should’ve been gone from here years ago/ You should be living a different life.”
Rather than indicating any sort of predicted change to the band’s sound, the reinvented sound of Against Me! on “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” sees the group return to form with a slew of catchy choruses and a powerfully driven, punk rock rhythm section, including the bass lines of punk rocker Fat Mike on tracks, “Unconditional Love” and “FUCKMYLIFE666.”
The album refuses to release the gas, as “Unconditional Love” sees Grace vocalizing her struggles with gender dysphoria in the first-person.
“Even if your love was unconditional,” Grace sings through the chorus. “It still wouldn’t be enough to save me.”
Throughout “Transgender Dysphoria Blues,” the band’s revived punk rock stylings are not just there to match the success of its past, but to challenge the dynamic sound. Grace’s new album comes out clear on top as, to date, the greatest achievement from Against Me!, fully evident on “FUCKMYLIFE666.”
The first track on the second half of the album, “FUCKMYLIFE666” showcases Grace’s songwriting prowess: her ability to craft charming yet gritty guitar riffs over upbeat, classic punk rock bass licks and drum rhythms.
“Chipped nail polish and a barbed wire dress/ Is your mother proud of your eyelashes?” Grace sings. “Silicone chest and collagen lips/ How would you even recognize me?”
Throughout the album, Grace presents more honest lyricism and gut-wrenching screams with some of the most melodically-sound punk rock riffs to create an album that rarely lets up its brash intensity and approach. From tracks such as “Drinking with the Jocks” to “Dead Friend,” it’s evident that change has brought Grace and Against Me! into a style of mature, punk rock songwriting, which beautifully contradicts itself in more than one way.
With such a stunning album from a band that packs enough passion to do the trick, “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” ends with perhaps its strongest track, “Black Me Out.”
An effective and direct message aimed toward all of Grace’s doubters, “Black Me Out” combines solemnly determined verses with a loud, abrasive sing-along chorus that breaks every withering uncertainty that Against Me! has not returned as a dynamic and fervent rock band.