The politically righteous, melodically sharp Manitoba punks Propagandhi have been a band since 1986, and they’ve never made a record that wasn’t worth hearing. Increasingly, those guys take long breaks between records. Their most recent was Victory Lap, and that one came out eight years ago. Right now, the world could really use a new Propagandhi record, and we’re about to get one. Their new LP has the presumably-ironic title At Peace, and it’s set to arrive this spring — right on time, if you ask me.

Propagandhi finished At Peace in December, right before Donald Trump returned to power in America and started talking about turning Canada into the 51st state. But Propagandhi aren’t the type of band who can be surprised by that kind of thing. Decades ago, they were writing lyrics that fully apply to the current moment. The new album’s title track is a dramatically thrashed-out attack against the people who justify their participation in the capitalistic war of all against all: “Hedge every bet/ Lick every boot/ Make every appeal/ Prostrate yourself to the killing machine to spare yourself from its wheels/ ‘Better them than me’ rolls so seductively off your tongue/ Your reckoning has begun!” It sounds more like Iron Maiden than like NOFX, and its apocalyptic tone hits just right.

In a press release, longtime Prapagandhi singer/guitarist Chris Hannah describes the new LP like this:

Speaking for myself, this record might be a snapshot of me deciding whether I’m going to live out the rest of my life as Eckhart Tolle or live out the rest of my life as Ted Kaczynski…

Everything I’m singing about is still coming from being the same person that wrote and sang our first record How To Clean Everything in 1993. But what we’re putting into the songs now, probably reflects more despair than 30 years ago when we had similar perspectives, but with strands of hope and naivete. Now it’s the existential dread of eking out a life worth living in this completely failed society…

Twenty years ago, we had a sense that things are fucked but that there could be a mass mobilization of people against the oligarchy, the billionaire class. I don’t think that exists much in our music anymore, and I don’t believe that mobilization is forthcoming. I hope to be proven wrong.

Damn. Listen to “At Peace” and check out the new LP’s tracklist below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “At Peace”
02 “Prismatic Spray (The Tinder Date)”
03 “Rented PA”
04 “Guiding Lights”
05 “Cat Guy”
06 “No Longer Young”
07 “Stargazing”
08 “God Of Avarice”
09 “Benito’s Early Work”
10 “Vampire Are Real”

At Peace is out 5/2 on Epitaph.