Rise Against have achieved both commercial and critical success. The former is the result of a well-formed career but to be as widely appreciated by the music press, a band needs to have some substance to their style and with the word ‘punk’ so easily used as a stick to beat some in the genre, David Keevill explains why Rise Against are flying the flag the highest at the moment.
Over the last few weeks, pictures and videos of the devastating air attacks in Gaza have filled social media. Accompanying the outpouring of grief and sympathy for those unwitting civilians caught in the crossfire between Hamas and the Israeli military is (rightly) anger on behalf of those unable to defend themselves. As anybody with a first, second or third hand opinion wades in to shout ill-formed slurs at their chosen target, Twitter and Facebook – the 21st Century’s soapbox equivalents – have become a cacophony.