Rise Against

The about-to-blast grenade on the cover of Rise Against's [i]Revolutions Per Minute[/i] album — plugged into a pair of headphones, no less — says it all about the band's sound, a powder keg with seamless pop sensibilities and unshakeable hardcore roots. On paper, such a volatile combination seems destined for a devoted underground following, yet the Chicago band's fourth album somehow debuted at #10 on the [i]Billboard[/i] Top 200 chart and earned them an mighty fine profile in [i]Rolling Stone[/i]. One listen to [i]The Sufferer & the Witness[/i] reveals why, as "Prayer of the Refugee" demands a sing-along [i]and[/i] raised fists while frontman Tim Mcllrath easily switches between throat-shredding screams and ragged melodies.

As for the group's salad days, they're prominently (and proudly) displayed in our Next Steps.

The back-to-basics members of Rise Against had been together for only two years when they cut [i]The Unraveling[/i] with Mass Giorgini, a bassist/producer best known for his work with Screeching Weasel, Squirtgun, and Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong. Not surprisingly, the band's young, unfiltered anger powers their debut like a car driven by crash test dummies, from the simple, chug-a-lug groove of "Alive and Well" to the mid-tempo, boot-kicking charge of "401Kill." The group showed no signs of slowing down on their second album, either, as proven by the gate-crashing chords of "Black Masks and Gasoline" and the sucker-punch percussion of "Broken English."

As much as we love the scream-'til-you-drop side of hardcore, bands like Earth Crisis and Converge are nearly impossible to follow without their lyric sheets at your side. Rise Against, on the other hand, present their left-leaning lyrics and whiplash-inducing music in a fierce yet melodic package, not unlike such legends as Minor Threat, Bad Religion, and Black Flag. No wonder why the producers behind the skateboarding film [i]Lords of Dogtown[/i] selected the Chicago four-piece to play an old-school punk band — one that nails a gnarly cover of Black Flag's very own "Nervous Breakdown." Of course, Rise Against doesn't just pay tribute to hardcore's pioneers — as you're about to hear, they've spent the past decade forging their own sound, one laced with such fresh detours as the tender, acoustic core of "Swing Life Away" and the spoken-word/female-singer contrasts of "The Approaching Curve."