Against Me!

Unconditional Love [7-inch] (2014)

Ricky Frankel

Of the ten songs on Against Me!'s album Transgender Dysphoria Blues choosing the song "Unconditional Love" to have its own single was a bit curious at first. It's a bit "poppier" than most of the songs on the album, let alone the band's whole discography. Plus there are some awesome, hard–hitting jams that would make fantastic singles like the title track, "Black Me Out," "True Trans Soul Rebel" and "FuckMyLife666." But after playing the Unconditional Love EP once through it became clear that this EP was more about the message than just rockin' out. The message in "Unconditional Love" is all about the need to receive more than just love, but perhaps also unconditional moral and emotional support: "Even if your love is unconditional/It still wouldn't be enough to save me."

On the B–side of this EP is a new song is called "500 Years." This track only consists of Laura on acoustic guitar and vocals and Atom Willard on drums, which seems to be a kind of throw back to when the band was just a two–piece way before Reinventing Axl Rose was ever released. It's an uncharacteristically gentle and slow song when compared to the rest of the band's discography (except "8 Hours of Sleep" and "Two Coffins," granted). This song is filled with a lot of great imagery like "I was all washed up/Crawled up a storm drain and into a gutter." And this is probably one of Against Me!'s most personable songs. "500 Years" has themes of self–acceptance, to stop pretending to be something you're not, and to not always have to please people throughout the lyrics like, "500 Years, I was a ghost for you/500 years, I was lost for you/There's nothing left of me/I can't move on." At one point or another anyone can identify with that, whether its something simple like kid in high school trying to fit into a clique to something huge like a person who struggles with their sexuality or gender identity. At some point or another everyone seems to go through some sort of identity crisis whether it be significantly life changing or not so much. This EP is truly for everyone in that respect.

Note to my fellow vinyl nerds:
1,000 copies of this EP were pressed on 7–inch picture discs. The UK version came out on Xtra Mile Recordings.