Dead FM

Great album! Glad I finally found this record!

Such an amazing album with many good songs I highly recommend it to any fan of Strike Anywhere or just punk music in general alot of the songs also have good lyrics to back them up with messages which makes it that much better

It's got a couple of good, short and melodic politically charged songs that pack a good punch but it's only a couple. You can tell that these guys are starting to go real poppy.How To Pray, Dead Hours, Gunpowder and Ballad of a Bloody Run all suck. They're horrible songs.The songs that really stick out (for me) are Prisoner Echoes, Instinct, The Promise, Allies, Speak To Our Empty Pockets and House Arrest. The unmentioned songs are all mediocre.

I bought this CD at the perfect time. It was like a year ago and I was standing in the record store with Jared and Jake and I remember I was on Spring Break and had a lot of money for some reason and was looking for new music to try. The name "Strike Anywhere" had been thrown around a little here and there among fans of bands like Rise Against and the like, so I thought why not? I bought this CD with two other, and ironically I don't remember what the two others were.Probably because this one was sooooooo good. I popped this in for the first time on a 4 hour car drive from New York to Ohio, not knowing what to expect because I'd only heard one Strike song before. The CD opened up with Thomas's typical screaming vocals to a peaceful little guitar riff, then continued to hit me in the face with fast paced, catchy as god punk rock with amazing vocals and incredible energy. Every time I thought the CD was going to slow down for a second, like the intro to "Instinct" because the previous 5 or so CDs I bought before that followed a formula where the 2 or 3 fast tracks were first and then it relapsed into ballads and crap, but then it would pick up again and continue assaulting my ears in the best way possible. This CD basically came at the best time possible from a band that I had known basically nothing about.Musically, this is a gem. The two six string guitars work together perfectly, rarely playing the same thing but sounding very well together and also giving Garth's bass time to shine as well in bass driven songs like "How to Pray." I actually give credit to the drummer in this CD as well, and I rarely do that 'cause I am a guitar player and know nothing of rhythm or drums, for knowing when to spread himself about the whole kit and when to blast the living be-jesus out of the snare. Thomas's voice is one that I instantly fell in love with, because he's one of three vocalists who are both equally talented at screaming and singing and can go back and forth interchangebly (The other two are Tim McIlrath and Jay Navarro). The lyics on this CD are the most insightful political lyrics I've ever listened to, and I listen to an unbelievable amount of political music. You can tell that Thomas did his research before writing the really political songs like the opening track by the little footnotes in the booklet, but then there are also times when you can tell that he was just in a real manic mood and just took the pen to the paper with all the malice he had, and those songs are really good too.In conclusion, if I was going to be stranded on an island for the rest of my life with a CD player and 5 CDs, this would be one of the ones I chose to take with me, because it's seriously awesome. I bought their previous two works and they don't compare, (even though they're still really good, especially "Change is a Sound") It's also cool that these guys are big enough that their CDs can be found in FYE's all over the country but small enough that they don't acquire all the haters and "SELLOUT!" hype that bands like Rise Against do. It helps them stay truer to their sound. I'd recomend this to everyone except deaf people, and I'd say new fans should start here because you really can't do any better. I'm a tough tough critic but this piece of work blew me away. Standout tracks are pretty much every one but if I had to pick three they'd be "Sedition" "Hollywood Cemetery" and "Iron Trees," but again, that was hard to do because every track is perfect. GET THIS CD!

Thank God for Fat Mike. Every time I get depressed about the state of the nation, his Fat Wreck Chords releases an inspiring, combative agit-prop proto-punk album full of revolutionary zeal.Listening to Strike Anywhere's new album Dead FM improved my day today. After reading about the upcoming ABC movie violation known as "The Path to 9/11", it was difficult for me to do anything. Yet one play of Dead FM had me up and slam dancing around my office while howling at the witty invectives screamed out by vocalist Tom Barnett.Dead FM blends the angry, political bent of punk with a melodic hard core that makes for an unruly bit of noise guaranteed to have your landlady calling the cops on you. Dead FM is the first album they've made for Mike, having produced four very energetic albums for Jade Tree beforehand. Barnett's group consists of guitarists Matt Sherwood and Matt Smith, bassist Garth Petrie, and drummer Eric Kane. They all gleefully pound out strong iconoclastic beats to back up Tom's sharp blunts of commentary mixed with some harmonic backups that some may find out of place on an album as raw as Dead FM. Yet, this concoction works very well, allowing Barnett and his band to explore avenues that punk had until now not dared cross.Much of the material here is extremely personal, including "Sedition", which chronicles Barnett's grandfather's unknowing role in the Manhattan Project and "House Arrest", a fine little paean to unjust incarceration. Three years ago, Barnett and his band mates were held in a Japanese jail cell. But Dead FM goes far beyond personal experiences, lampooning the idiocy of global political leadership. Much like Against Me! Strike Anywhere is a punk roots band, the kind of punk that was made before the major labels started throwing six-figure marketing campaigns at bands in the eighties to kill off the burgeoning movement. Both bands couldn't have found a better time to resurrect the original punk style.Yes, Thank God for Fat Mike and Strike Anywhere. We're living in a time where political discourse is at an all time low and the entire prescription drug induced zombie population roams the earth in a daze of reality television shows and cutesy-pie pop divas. We need an infusion of adrenaline to get their hearts and minds working again. Strike Anywhere is just the band for the job.

I was expecting this to suck considering everything they've done had been a step-down from the album before. But I think it was actually a nice step-up from Exit English (which was a total disappointments after Change Is A Sound). This album actually has fast songs again. And where as til this day, I still can't tell the difference between songs on Exit English, Dead FM has a lot of dynamics to it. The vocals are a little less abrasive. But the album is still energetic. The lyrics are still well-crafted political hymns (much unlike Against Me or Anti-Flag who have very simple cliche lyrics). Cool guitar work. Fast songs, slow songs. Most the tracks are have an upbeat feel. Decent drum sound. Bad bass sound. Thin guitar sound is pretty thin and low in the mix. But in the final process, the album sounds really together. Probably one of the best mixes, considering the vintage equipment used. Its a good album. Go buy it.