If you would have asked me ten years ago which band’s new album I’d be most excited for in 2021, it would have taken me hundreds of guesses to finally land on Five Iron Frenzy. After all, I first discovered them in 7th grade, and I’d hope to have grown out of goofy ska songs and Pants Operas in the space of twenty-one years.
However, I realize now that all of their wry, irreverent humor was a sort of Trojan horse, through which they smuggled cutting criticisms of the Church’s hypocrisy toward racism, police brutality, and greed into youth group kids’ Discmans.
While these messages have always been hiding amid the upstrokes, horn lines, and bad puns, Until This Shakes Apart pulls off all pretense, abandoning their wooden horse in favor of a full-on frontal assault.
As a thirteen-year-old in a strongly Republican household, I missed most of the political subtext of Reese Roper’s lyrics. “One Girl Army” said nothing about the entrenched misogyny of our Patriarchal society—it was just a badass song about St. Mary. “All That Is Good” wasn’t about the dangers of rigid dogma that makes no room for doubt—it was an encouragement to keep the faith. And “Get Your Riot Gear” was way too catchy to be about police brutality.
But there’s absolutely no room for ignorance here. The lyrics are explicit and pointed and Roper spits them out with the righteous anger of an Old Testament prophet. He mentions Sandy Hook, gentrifiers, gerrymandering, and the KKK by name. Congressmen are called concubines. The Religious Right are called “Wolves in the assembly, Casting votes for Jesus’ clothes.” “Wildcat” is ska punk via Bruce Springsteen, telling the story of a beleaguered blue-collar worker running away from his family because he can’t cope with the weight of his psychological trauma. “While Supplies Last” finds him at his angriest, casting the greed and bigotry of religious and political conservatives at the expense of the poor, the marginalized, and the environment. A line like “If you vote to stop abortions, Damn the pregnant girls and orphans” is a one-way ticket to getting banned in Christian bookstores, even though their target market desperately needs to hear these songs.
Musically, it’s darker and more aggressive than they’ve ever been. There are still upstrokes and horns aplenty, but many of the tempos are slower, adopting a moody reggae beat. The horn section is often covered in a thick layer of delay reminiscent of Scientist or Lee “Scratch” Perry. “Bullfight For an Empty Ring” has one of the thickest grooves they’ve ever put to tape. The gun lobby missive “Renegades” is rich with Voodoo, a synth bassline tethering the electric piano as it tinkers on the backbeat. “Huerfano” is frantic and punky, riding a relentless onslaught from the drums, bass, and guitar.
It’s not all politics and darkness here though. Aggressive as “Huerfano” sounds, it’s a tender-hearted anthem for those with bullied childhoods. “Auld Lanxiety” is a poppy and inviting look at his own anxiety and the escape music gives him. “One Heart Hypnosis” protests the bipartisan addiction to smartphones, Instagram reality, and the personal isolation it creates, set to some of the most beautiful instrumental work they’ve ever done. “Homelessly Devoted to You” is a bouncy love song inviting his paramour to escape responsibility and civilization and live in his beat-up Volvo. “So We Sing” is a celebration of the youthful exuberance of their live show, framing the act of playing in a ska band as an alternative to flying to Neverland.
That said, there is a certain irony to claiming that playing in a ska punk band is how you rebel against growing up while also offering up a stunningly mature, yet still unmistakably Five Iron Frenzy record—not that anyone ever expected to use the words “mature” and “Five Iron Frenzy” anywhere close to each other without some negative qualifier in there. But with Until This Shakes Apart, Five Iron Frenzy has grown up alongside the ’90s kids that comprised their primary audience, and they’re just as angry at the state of things as we are.