After a career longer than 20 years, after helping creating and spreading the punk rock word, Bad Religion is back with their 14th album, the third on Epitaph Records after they left major label Atlantic. I will be straight: this is the best "comeback to Epitaph" album, much better than "Process Of Belief" and even better than "The Empire Strikes First".
The new disc is made of 16 songs in the pure old school Bad Religion style: not only in the music, which is fast, loud and with top-clever lyrics, but also in the artwork, as the crossbuster on the CD (I think I did not see the Bad Religion logo on a Bad Religion CD since the 1994 album "Stranger Than Fiction"), as well as the complete package, which makes me think of it as a Bad Religion record.
The songs: the new songs sound like a cross between the old style of album as "Suffer" and "No Control", with very fast guitar riffs, singalongs, choruses and the new progress started with "Process Of Belief", even though there is not a single slow song on "New Maps Of Hell" that reminds me of "Sorrow". And this is good, for sure. Tunes like "Germs Of Perfection New Dark Ages" and "Murder" are extremely fast and short, while "Before You Die Honest Goodbye" and "Prodigal Son" are the most catchy and - I\' d dare to say - poppy, of the whole record. There is not a single second of boring moments, as songs are built to stick in your ears from the first listen, and if you are a die hard fan of the band, you will also enjoy the last tracks "Submission Complete" and "Fields Of Mars", which I think make the record a little bit too longer for the average music listeners.
"New Maps Of Hell" is surely the biggest album Bad Religion released since 1994, and I am so glad to say that these guys never die, and it\' s good to see them back again.
track list
1 52 Seconds
2 Heroes & Martyrs (MP3)
3 Germs Of Perfection
4 New Dark Ages
5 Requiem For Dissent
6 Before You Die
7 Honest Goodbye
8 Dearly Beloved
9 Grains Of Wrath
10 Murder
11 Scrutiny
12 Prodigal Son
13 The Grand Delusion
14 Lost Pilgrim
15 Submission Complete
16 Fields Of Mars
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