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Alternative PressBright Lights is a super-serious record that demostrates some super-serious song craft. [May 2008, p.130]
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Their sound--enhanced by the energies of a second guitarist, Chris Head, and a bassist, Chris #2--literally urges participation. Every song’s chorus helpfully comes prearranged as a sing-along: no room for sullenness here.
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Q MagazineTheir thrillingly angry seventh album is a more furious companion piece to "American Idiot," raging at both social injustice and the self-righteousness of the punk underground. [June 2008, p.138]
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On their seventh disc, the music successfully carries the message, thanks in no small part to Bowie/Morrissey/T. Rex producer extraordinaire Tony Visconti, who pumps even more life into these loud, rousing singalong choruses and driving power chords without sacrificing dynamics or naked emotion.
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The Bright Lights of America, Anti-Flag's second major-label album and eighth overall, proves for the billionth time that good intentions don't always make good music.
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Too much of the disc, like the histrionic "The Modern Rome Burning," swipes singsong, folk-stoked stridency from Against Me! and American Steel; the rest of it throws random orchestration at the wall and misses it altogether.
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Even if Anti-Flag’s hearts are in the right place, Bright Lights of America is too vague to be impactful.
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Unfortunately, despite now working with David Bowie producer Tony Visconti, who infuses their angular, system-smashing screeds with timpani ("Good and Ready"), brass ("Shadow of the Dead"), and harmonica ("Go West"), Anti-Flag still don't possess the innate pop sensibility that's allowed Against Me! to make a mainstream move.
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The ambitious sound of The Bright Lights of America is a dreadful fifty-two minutes long; with an average song length over three minutes.
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Under The RadarOn the Tony Visconti produced The Bright Lights of America, the band opts for the same brand of pristine song production and testosterone-soaked chants as every other mall-punk band, and, in so doing, makes it hard to discern them from the crowd. [Summer 2008]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 13
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Mixed: 4 out of 13
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Negative: 2 out of 13
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Sep 28, 2022
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Jul 5, 2011
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dmddJul 5, 2008This sucks compared to the previous albums.