children already belong to us

Children Already Belong To Us

A friend of mine alerted me to the fact that Propagandhi have a new

album coming out this October. It's titled Potemkin City Limits and

the cover-art is by Eric Drooker. Their label, G7 Welcoming Committee,

has already kindly made one song available for download:

Propagandhi - "Die Jugend Marschiert"

My first thought is that it's not as immediate or aggressive as the

majority of their back catalog, but that's just a trite summary of my

initial reaction. Besides, what it lacks in impact it more than makes

up for in ambition. Their humor is certainly undiminished. Listen

closely, the lyrics are actually (I'm guessing) a fictitious speech

made by one Colonel Casey Wardynski, who has some fucked-up ideas

about America. For starters, as director of U.S. Army's Office of

Economic and Manpower Analyses, he personally oversaw the creation of

"America's Army", the official video game of the U.S. Army. Homeboy

came up with this shit to lure teenage boys into the army. You see,

while your favorite band is sitting around writing ditties about their

sack-of-shit lives and inability to get laid, Propagandhi are writing

to expose pricks like Wardynski. I agree, it takes all kinds, but

songs like this certainly put things into perspective. More power to

them!

It'll be interesting to see what the rest of Potemkin City Limits is

like, especially whether or not it maintains this trend of longer

songs with more ambitious arrangements. It's all the more difficult to

know what to expect considering that Propagandhi haven't released an

album since 2000's Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes. Granted,

Propagandhi usually have a longer than average gestation period, but

with all that's happened in the last four years I'm sure the wait has

felt longer than ever for fans. Makes me wonder what they've been

sitting on.

Here are two of their older songs, for comparison's sake:

Propagandhi - "True (Concrete Blonde)"

Propagandhi - "Back To The Motor League"

The first song is from 1998's Where Quantity Is Job #1 and the second

is from the aforementioned Today's Empires. See what I mean with my

less immediate, less aggressive comment? Propagandhi have always been