Rise Against

It must be hard to maintain the reservoir of aggression necessary to fuel a successful hardcore band, but Rise Against have managed to do so for years. Their fourth album finds them staying true to their throwback roots, grinding out straight-ahead, guitar thrashing, vocal-chord shredding hardcore punk. Single "Ready to Fall" veers into more rockin' territory and backing harmonies and sweeping melodies soften the edge of "Under the Knife" and the spoken word of "The Approaching Curve," but the rest of The Sufferer and the Witness is personal, politicized and pleasantly jagged.