Rise Against - Swing LifeAway

Fri 30th Sep, 2005 in Music Reviews

Swing Life Away is the new single for Rise Against, plucked from their hot 2004 release, Siren Song Of The Counter Culture. Released just in time for their October tour, this number is no doubt set to have all the local fans salivating in anticipation.

A soft acoustic ditty, it is clearly not the kind of song one would come to expect of the melodic hardcore foursome. It’s a tear-jerking love ballad, clocking in at a touch under four minutes and features little more than the soft but gritty vocals of Tim McIlrath backed up by rhythmic guitar and harmonised backing vocals. As one of the better songs on the album, the choice to make this a single was most definitely a great one.

While this will probably never see release as a commercially available single and thus a b-side being irrelevant, it’s confusing that the accompanying track is an “acoustic version” of the song. What exactly this means when the song is already completely acoustic is something this reviewer is still trying to work out. After countless listens to compare the two versions the only thing that was clear was that both versions definitely had the same guitar and vocal track, and any difference was obviously not even worth bothering about. Maybe someone at the label was just trying to be a funny bugger by screwing with us all.

Whatever the case make sure you keep an ear out for this one, it’s miles ahead of the stock standard emo tripe being bandied as original and inspiring. By the way, don’t forget to keep your lighters at the ready this October.