FUCKOURBLURBS[7.25]…

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[7.25]

Tara Hillegeist: This is the kind of throat-shreddingly catchy ditty that I wouldn’t have been caught dead singing along to in high school; a metalcore/noise-rock kiddo like me getting her hands near an album with enough ties to Fat Wreck Chords that Fat Mike actually guested on some of the tracks? You’re kidding, right? I’m afraid the workmanlike construction of “Black Me Out” isn’t exactly winning me over to the side of the digestibly melodic rock & rollers that stupid, adolescent disdain’s holdover has stymied my investment into ever since (it’s like kudzu, no matter how many Superchunk songs I hack away at it with it refuses to die), but this is much the same as I’ve come to at least appreciate from songs of its ilk. Laura Grace’s lyrics stick to the straightforward and sharp-tongued — I can’t say it’s not a fun romp from its open to its close, and oh is it ever compulsively singable on the chorus. There might not be much to it besides a strong feeling, but that’s all right. I just wanna roar the “as if you were a kingmaker — as if as if as if!” that launches its title-drop again and again, and a hit of euphoria that giddy isn’t anything to sneer at. 
[6]

Megan Harrington: “Black Me Out” is filled with an acute desire for revenge that it takes the Count of Monte Cristo 117 chapters to exact; Laura Jane Grace has the pin in her teeth from the opening chords. It’s not that she’s indelicate in her fantasies but that she’s wasted too much time living in someone else’s world. Her battle cry wastes nothing — the guitars gouge the corpse’s eyes and there’s nothing so decorative as a cymbal flourish to be found — it’s the shortest distance possible between rage and glory.
[8]

Brad Shoup: Watching punks marshal their resources will never get old for me. I remember the folky swing of “Those Anarcho Punks Are Mysterious,” how Grace could allude to the offhand melodies of the Clash and muster the obligatory group shout without rendering either corny. By White Crosses, that swing was a byproduct of a killer songwriting kit. I love how “black me out” is a command, then an exasperated exclamation, then a parting request. The chorus sticks, even with its topline settling on some strange perches. The end doesn’t match the rush of the processional guitar riff/crash cymbal section, but it fits. It’s a necessary withdrawal from all this bullshit. 
[8]

Alfred Soto: To reflect even closer affinities to singer-songwriter verities, the guitars boast an unexpected twang before the inevitable crunch. The trick with Against Me! in 2014 is to evaluate them on the degree to which they continue the thrash-pop of their last two albums but informed by Laura Jane Grace’s coming out as transgender. If lines like “as if I was your fuckin’ whore” and “I wanna piss on the walls of your house” are any indication, she hasn’t settled on panaceas. Yet.
[9]

Anthony Easton: The rest of the song, especially the vocals, do not live up to the potential to those gorgeous guitars and that luxurious introduction. The anger might be real, but I’ve heard it before.
[6]

Cédric Le Merrer: There’s obviously some extraneous stuff that gives this song added resonance. Without that, it’s just a ‘meh’ angry punk song, a little on the heavy side. So there’s a couple of points for the extraneous stuff, but I really liked “True Trans Soul Rebel” more.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Transgender Dysphoria Blues is the first Against Me! album I’ve heard, and what I like most is Laura Jane Grace’s songwriting — specifically, the disarming verses, plainspoken in the best possible sense. You could read the album on paper and it’d stand alone, from the first line of the first song — “your tells are so obvious” — and here too: “I don’t ever want to talk that way again,” as good of a summary of a sick system as I’ve heard. Crucially, Grace understands the other half of songwriting: letting those acoustic chords arc until impact on the chorus, and (much like “I Blame Myself,” for comparison) marrying that plainspoken verse to something blunt and shoutable, making her case then spewing contempt at the court.
[7]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: It’s Pukkelpop 2006 and the heavens are threatening to open above the stage on which Against Me! are performing. The audience nervously, politely applaud to each song. Some are planning an exodus for a tent and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ NY drawls, and the rest are going to see how it goes. The heavens open, the noise from the clouds crackling and weeping, and the grass is rendered sandalwood colour almost immediately. The opening strums to “Reinventing Axl Rose” reward those that brave the rain and the crowd surges into union — suddenly, we are more than people watching a band at a music festival, we are The Ones Who Stayed. We are the lucky ones, dancing and ohh-ohhing into a shitty Belgian sky alongside four punks as they vow let’s make everybody sing. “Black Me Out” takes me back to that shitty day outside and in finding glee in knowing where you stand, except this song has a puerile awesome chant about pissing in somebody’s house. Yet there is something missing from this song and I know just what it is: I need a horrid, soaked field and a new few hundred allies.
[8]