's sounds like vintage , and maybe that's all you need to know about 's third effort. The vets from the FLA have added a further postscript to their rumble, veering into a melodic yet slightly jaded maturity resembling that of -era . 's catchy, punky fatalism is another touchstone for what offers; also provides a few satisfying holdovers from their early-2000s output. (The stinging double-time clap of for example.) But in the melodic meantime, and back up with tense and cynical barbed wire meditations. Distant guitar sustain wrangles around a prickly ride cymbal as harmonize on the latter's lyrical venom. "All I ask is how we carry on/Tricked and blind, raped and robbed"; "...In the end, you're on your own" -- are they referring to government dirty tricks, or a more personally cynical world view? The latter seems truer given 's somewhat trying existence, band fragmentation and underappreciation being two big issues. 's latent are softened by echoing production and plaintive lead vocals, is a rawer, seasoned-rocker version of the rager being written by every junior varsity hopeful, and is as touching a love letter as the underground has in 2004. Veterans always endure adversity at some point; the pros put it back into their music, and certainly has. What's come next is more controlled and sobering, and shows signs of the lives they've lived around the hard core. ~ Johnny Loftus