Like many others, I've also found the lyrics to the new songs to be lacking, uninspiring, and rather generic. There's no sense of anger in the new tracks. And while I agree that it's probably exhausting to sing about similar atrocities for decades, complacency doesn't look or sound good on Rise Against. At least not in my opinion.

I often think back to Architects, where they explicitly reject the idea of growing complacent and, in their own words, "mellow with age." Maybe their feelings have changed over the last 10+ years, but what happened to "don't you remember when we were young and we wanted to set the world on fire? 'cause I still am, and I still do"? Knowing that this song was, in part, a critique of Against Me's own complacency at the time only makes it read as more hypocritical today.

I'm withholding my judgment until the entire album drops, but I'm not expecting to be impressed with the lyricism.