There are a lot of moments during Against Me!'s sixth album, Transgender Dysphoria Blues, where the music is so good that I reach a moment of euphoria. It's not really the typical "this is a great album" euphoria (though Transgender Dysphoria Blues is), it's more of a gratefulness. "I'm so pleased that this exists," is something that's run through my head during multiple listens.
Perhaps that feeling comes from the strange and unlikely road it took to get here. As The AP Party is a pop culture site that doesn't often feature music, here's the short-ish version: In May of 2012, Against Me!'s lead singer — previously known as Tom Gabel — came out as a transgender woman in a Rolling Stone feature, and announced that she was going to begin transitioning and presenting as female under the name Laura Jane Grace.
This happened soon after the dissolution of Against Me!'s partnership with major label Sire, after which the band began work on Blues on their own label, Total Treble. There were multiple attempts to record and re-record the album, and both the band's most recent drummer (Jay Weinberg, of the Springsteenian Weinbergs) and bassist from their best-known lineup (Andrew Seward) left the group.
So there's really no reason any of this should work, but Transgender Dysphoria Blues switches the narrative even without Grace's transition. Against Me! always works best with a chip on its shoulder (to be completely upfront, I'm an avowed fan of the group who saw them live for the 10th time a few weeks ago), with a fire in its belly, with a machine to rage against. Whereas the group's most recent album, 2010's Butch Vig-produced White Crosses, sounds downright melancholy by their own standards, this one is the well known trope of a Back To Basics record… except not.
The record that Blues will likely draw comparisons to is, in my opinion, the band's best, 2005's Searching For a Former Clarity. On that album, Grace found a way to channel rage at diverse, narrow topics as the music industry, being labeled as sellouts, bad dates and the fear of dying into anthemic, universal sing-alongs better than Against Me! ever has before or since. But Blues gives it a run for its money.
Even if you've never met a trans person, the themes will resonate deeply with all of the punk rock misfits and kids wearing black. Grace doesn't just channel her heartbreaking feelings of dysphoria, but the death of friends, drug addiction, the inevitability of dying and the need for self-acceptance. It's a stunning record once you get over the pure joy that something like this is in the mainstream, or at least adjacent to it.
Take "Unconditional Love," which — were this album not called Transgender Dysphoria Blues — would be burning up rock radio at the moment. It's a rollicking, bar band stomper led by punk rock gun-for-hire Atom Willard's drums that recalls The Replacements and The Hold Steady, which at once tributes a lover, while at the same time disregarding the need for outside acceptance over self love. There's a chorus that goes "Even if your love was unconditional, it still wouldn't be enough to save me." The verses are even wordier. Oh, and Fat Mike plays bass on it (as well as "FUCKMYLIFE666" later on). Nothing about it should work, but Against Me! pulls it together and turns it into the record's best song.
While that's nice, the headline on the record is also its signature subject. Your heart breaks as you sing along to the jangling, furious title track, while the meditations on past regrets are drowned out by the catchiest chorus the band has ever written on "True Trans Soul Rebel." "Osama Bin Laden as the Crucified Christ" sounds like late 80's alt-metal. It's the most bizzarely beautiful thing I've heard with guitars in quite some time.
"Black Me Out" is the last song on the record. It's a roaring punk rock ballad with guitars that make you want to take a wrecking ball to massive buildings. The chorus is massive, and you can feel the house caving in on itself towards the end. It's the sound of Grace (and fellow remaining "original" Against Me! member James Bowman) blowing everything that the band stands for up until then.
I will be the 50th or 60th in a line of white, cisgender males who tell you that Transgender Dysphoria Blues is an "important" record to listen to. Please don't use that factor to keep you away from it. Even if you don't know anyone in that community, you could do worse than to educate yourself, and you could do worse than using this as a catalyst. It's an incredible, thrilling 30 minutes of music that begs to be heard, and absolutely should.
