Flush It Friday: No One Can Take Much For Granted Anymore…
Good news: Bad Religion is the perfect punk band for the modern era. Bad news: Bad Religion is the perfect punk band for the modern era.
Welcome to Friday, toiletheads.
Shit’s been crazy, hasn’t it? The first two and a half months have been a tumultuous time for those under the loser dork regime of America. Just about every fear posed by marginalized groups and promise from violent autocrats has either come to fruition or will more than likely be flirted with (at a minimum). The Trump-Musk doomsday cult we suffer is the endgame of internet-age reactionary hysteria, built on top of a bipartisan corporate police state. In other words, you can draw a direct line from Gamergate incels to the current booming industry of christo-fascist horseshit.
As a result of this, in addition to building an administration upon unrelenting sadism, the modern wave of rancid American Exceptionalism is often indistinguishable from satire. The images of metaphorical critique have been cheapened by capitalistic media consumption and tactless hacks; all the while far-right politics leaned into a sense of post-ironic detachment. Regarding political loud-rock, groups like Viagra Boys and Chat Pile have found a way to speak to a far more complicated zeitgeist than the pre-internet culture critiqued by the Dead Kennedys and Reagan Youth. While the righteous sonic soul of counter-culture lives on through the former groups, few rock bands hit that sense of raw institutional resentment like Bad Religion.
The classic album run from Bad Religion has found permanent residence in the tangled mess of cables I call a head. A melodic hardcore act with sticky hooks, intense energy, and notably tight chops, the group had an incredibly strong presence as a band and a prominent lyrical voice. Greg Graffen’s talents as a lyricist lie in his dry, blunt musings on a contradictory society controlled by malevolent men and their spineless lackeys. Albums like Against the Grain, No Control, Generator, and Recipe for Hate are verbose and impassioned, reading about as good as they sound. Their tracks can be a bit lyrically dense and all fall quite sharply on the nose, but the stories of mankind’s greed and follies resonate unfortunately true for a political culture that’s only become more vain, sanctimonious, spiteful, boarish, and stupid as the corrosive structures of power continue to rot away. There’s a sense of pained humor coursing through the group’s discography, a deeply uncomfortable chuckle at a sad state of affairs that only seems to be getting worse.
And in these chaotic and frightening times, one thing you can always rely on is the fine work around the bowl here at the Toilet Ov Hell.
Joaquin Stick brought the doom to the doomscroll with this week’s TMP:
Gage discussed the newest album from Whitechapel and where it stands in their legendary career:
Roldman placed the “Rays of Sinister Star” atop his throne This Toilet Tuesday:
The podcast peeps got Lynchian with Dawn of Ourboros‘ Chelsea Murphy:
Spear explored the morbid history of Rome and its own powerful, sadistic pervs with ADE:
The Iron Goddess unveiled fresh horrors the kinds of which man was never supposed to witness (a.k.a. a new Escarnium single):
Brock reviewed my sleep paralysis demon. He gave it four and a half toilets out of five, I just wish it would get out of my room:
Saving the BEAST for last, Spear premiered TovH-mainstay Graveborn‘s banger new single:
Please take care of yourselves and one another—keep fighting the good fight and drop your GBUs in the comments.
