Anti-flag

There’s an American punk band from Pennsylvania, called Anti-flag. Despite releasing their first album in 1996 (Die for the Government), it is only in recent time that they are beginning to enjoy mainstream popularity (from their picture you can probably tell that going mainstream wasn’t really on their to-do list). The band is classic anti-establishment: their lyrics are routinely anti-war, anti-capitalism and anti-American (at least in the foreign policy sense). Their latest album, For Blood and Empire focuses particularly on the War on Terror and the Bush administration’s mishandling of it.

With song titles like: “Depleted Uranium is a War Crime” and “The W.T.O. Kills Farmers”, you can see why Anti-flag isn’t on regular rotation on commercial radio. They are also fond of saying fuck, something which obviously doesn’t endear them to the media. These songs, however demonstrate a deeper knowledge of these issues than the haircuts of the band members would suggest, and the seriousness of the content probably justifies the profanity (they’re talking about war crimes, corporate greed, dead soldiers and freedom of speech, and their anger is understandable).

The clip that follows is of their song “This is the End (for you my friend)”. It’s the most mainstream song from Blood and Empire and will give you a taste of their style. Anti-flag are not for everyone, but I’m glad they’re trying to get a message out, and they will always have an invitation to tour down under while I’m President.