Rise Against

Normally i don't listen to punk music. i've found that most of it is just a whole lot of Oi!Oi!Oi! and not much else. a simple drum beat and the same three chords over and over again, combined with a vocalist that sounds like he's got too much snot in his nose and it prevents him from sounding tolerable.
not only that....most punk is just way too poppy sounding lately...i blame Blink 182.

but Rise Against...damn...i think i've loved every song of theirs that i have heard. the lyrics are socially and politically conscious, yet poetic at the same time. the vocalist is hearfelt, and you can empathize with his words. the drumming is solid and the guitars are not only catchy, but rough enough to scratch my itch. and they are good to boot.

this band is one of the better ones that i have stumbled upon in quite awhile. i've had their album "The Sufferer and the Witness" loaded onto my ipod since last october. and i have no intention of taking it off. i like 'em that much.

Myspace

i don't consider blink182 punk...

socially conscious punk- check out refused, union 13, earthcrisis, black flag...

if you want to be a purist about labels in regards to punk, though, you'd have to consider talking heads as also punk...

i had Earthcrisis' greatest hits album once.
i decided to check them out.
their vocalist made me want to stab myself in the eye.....with a spoon...repeatedly.
i liked the music, but sometimes even the greatest music is irreparably damaged by the vocalist.
i have the same opinion of the Misfits...just something about a zombie Elvis that just turns me off. i know that i might offend some Misfits fans by saying this, but i thought Micheal Graves was a much better vocalist.

another good punk band, in my opinion at least, is Anti-flag. haven't heard much, but what i have, i've liked.

I haven't actually heard any Rise Against, tbh.

Earth Crisis are a straight-edge vegan band, and -I'm just guessing here - are probably closer to actual hardcore than hardcore punk.

Surely you must like the Dead Kennedys? I don't think I even need to go into them.

Also check out some of the earlier UK acts, such as X-Ray Spex, a really cool female-fronted with saxophone. Oh Bondage, Up Yours is a fucking anthem.

You might also want to look into Flipper, especially their early stuff. They played 'slow' (for hardcore punk) and were plenty bizarre... huge influence on Kurt Cobrain. Check out Ha Ha Ha.

Yeah.. tbh I'm still a hude punk n00b, but yeah, hope this helps.

Oh, and Blink 182 and co have NOTHING to do with punk, man. That's watered-down MTV pop-rock.

GERMS has always been my defining term when it came to punk. Everything else was/is/willbe Suffix-Punk. Talking Heads were Art-Punk, Wendy O was Porno-Punk, and so on and so forth.

Rise Against has not struck my fancy. Mostly due to having the same haircut, vocal style, and fashion sense as the Zombie Elvis aforementioned.

I don't think I've ever even heard a single Rise Against song. I did, however, clean up after one of their concerts a few weeks back. Damn they have some messy fans. Not as messy as Tiesto fans, but messy none the less.