Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is something just right about the way that Anti-Flag conduct their lives when it comes to recording music and performing a live set, it is almost as if the stance against anything that comes across as main stream or has even the barest whiff of corporate attached to it, is to be shunned as far as it can go and then given the nod of ridicule just to annoy it further.
There are many ways in which to capture a live set for prosperity, some of the best are those which take place in the most unusual of places, some have the feeling of having been aurally satisfied just because of the small things that happen which makes the listener know it is a true and beautiful recording, the slight mistakes, the errant note change, the laughter of a small crowd that sounds as if they have poured themselves into the very heart of a studio and in which music is made. For Anti-Flag the studio is a huge friend and in their album Live at 11th Street Studios, the commotion of collected cool is king.
Playing only as an acoustic duo, the music infiltrates with ease through the medium of recorded pleasure and as songs such as Fabled World, the beautiful Broken Bones, with a heartfelt and personal plea to those suffering under the weight of hard times and mental illness to make sure they talk to someone, the tremendous cover of Billy Bragg’s Brandenburg Gate, 1915 and Die for the Government came across with humanity, laid back but thunder inspired effortlessness, the humour and the bitten down venom could be heard with the slight touch of pathos rubbing out the hard edges.
To have this type of recording placed before the fans is not only verging on the cool but it goes to show, that like Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues, it is not just the songs that make an album but the choice of where it is played live that energies everything together, that makes everything real.
An album of courage and daring, a gratifying diversion from the edited and gloss finish afforded some live albums, Anti-Flag really know how to bring a truth to the party.
Ian D. Hall