The first single, "Ready to Fall," with its devastatingly powerful video, is an escalating, complex track with a throat-shredding bridge, and a compelling chorus. Tracks like "Injection" and "Drones" are perfect ragers, delivered in Rise Against's trademark double-time, replete with apocalyptic imagery derived from very real fears. Tim's vocals are at the forefront, delivering scattered snippets of shout-along rage, interspersed through some remarkably strong and anthemic melodies, his voice conveying both abject despondency and earnest hope throughout. Lyrically and musically, this is a surprisingly dark record, and powerfully single-minded and cohesive. With The Sufferer & the Witness, Rise Against has delivered an album that fixes those problems and surpasses Siren Song and their previous best Revolutions Per Minute handily and also expands the band's range without changing their sound. It was a good album, but not as great as Rise Against could be. To their credit, the band managed to keep things somewhat raw despite his influence, but it seemed clear to any fan that something wasn't right. His influence resulted in an album that suffered in small but significant ways as he tried to force the band's gritty Midwestern sound into a slick modern rock package. The one disappointment then, was that they were coupled with a talented hitmaker producer that unfortunately just didn't understand this genre of music. But I had faith the label might try to change them, but I knew they'd refuse, and for the most part, they did. That's not to say that I even understood what happened when the band left Fat Wreck Chords and signed to Dreamworks I loved the album that garnered them major label attention, but it seemed too honest, too dark and too real to be force-fed through glamorous MTV singles they didn't have the striking image of an AFI, or the friendly snottiness of Green Day.
But even then it was clear that it was a little moment of greatness a powerful hardcore/punk band channeling their emotion through a simple acoustic song, and when it was re-recorded and released on Siren Song, I knew that it would have an impact. The single that broke the band was a simple contribution to a little compilation called Punk Goes Acoustic. The success of Siren Song of the Counter Culture, Rise Against's previous album, should have been a surprise, but frankly, I must admit that it wasn't.
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