Propagandhi just keeps getting better.

The veteran punk band from Winnipeg released their sixth full-length album, Failed States, Sept. 4 on Epitaph Records.

The album is hard-hitting, it’s head banging and it fucks the system like all Propagandhi albums have since their first in 1993.

Propagandhi was strongest on their previous album, Supporting Caste, with songs such as the title track and “Dear Coach’s Corner.” These standout tracks threw the listener from moments of face-melting thrash to harrowing melodies. Failed States nearly perfects these transitions.

“We really liked how [Failed States] managed to stay ‘cinematic’ while careening back and forth between our brazen metallic tendencies and our more ragged punk rock roots,” lead singer and guitarist Chris Hannah said in a press release.

The opening track, “Note to Self,” starts off with a constant, eerie resonant tone before one of the band’s two guitars — Hannah and David (Beaver) Guillas — starts playing softly. Slowly, Todd Kowalski, the bassist, and Jordy Samolesky, the drummer, join in anticipation of Hannah’s unmistakable voice, which comes nearly two minutes into the track.

While previous Propagandhi tracks wouldn’t pass up an opportunity for head banging once Hannah’s voice kicks in, “Note to Self” continues to build, teasing the audience with mildly hardcore moments before bringing the track back down to the slow intensity of the introduction.

Hannah challenges his listener to stop being apathetic. “You just sat there believing in this bullshit system,” he sings. “Just wishing the mob would magically come to its senses. How does it make you feel to know you just stood by and watched it?”

As the song’s final 30 seconds start to really pick up, Hannah yells, “Rise,” setting the stage for the next track, “Failed States,” where the band jumps full-fledged into very recognizable Propagandhi thrash.

“Hardon Collision,” the album’s fifth song, marks one of the few weak moments of Failed States. It’s a good track, it’s fast, it shreds, it’s angry. Clocking in at about 1:30, it’s a throwback Propagandhi punk song. Unfortunately, it feels out of place and lacks the ambition of most of the other songs on the album.

Hannah told Winnipeg’s Stylus magazine, “There are a few more abstract thoughts about us as people and human nature on the record.”

“Hardon Collision” — which follows up “Rattan Cane,” a song exploring the massacre of heavy metal musicians, or “emos,” in Iraq — chastises car drivers and praises bicycling in the winter.

The song’s lyrics, while they do perhaps make a larger statement about humanity, just don’t match up to the contemplative poetry of most of the album.

“Status Update,” a one-minute song in which Hannah releases his frustration over his “big, dumb” Facebook friends, suffers from the same lyrical lag as “Hardon Collision.”

Propagandhi seems to be strongest on their longer tracks. They are at their best when they balance aggressive rocking with melodic breakdowns.

Failed States final two songs, “Lotus Gait” and “Duplicate Keys Icaro,” perfectly capture the best Propagandhi has offered yet.

“Lotus Gait” begins with a clean guitar riff and Hannah chillingly singing, “I have this recurring nightmare.”

Samolesky then kicks in with the hi-hat as Hannah sings, “I have this childhood memory.” The track layers with tight drumming and harmonies as Hannah compares the modern television era to the strangling practice of foot binding. He compellingly argues that our “home entertainment prisons” hold us captive as we try to ignore our worldwide post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Duplicate Keys Icaro” opens peacefully to a lone guitar playing the same melody as the opening riff from “Lotus Gait.” The sound of fingers sliding across the strings calms the listener. But as the build up increases, the listener anticipates a pay off.

Propagandhi delivers. The guitars weave back-and-forth between the “Lotus Gait” melody and roaring power chords. Hannah sings with his recognizable poetic stresses and the song slows to the eerie resonance heard in the album’s opening track before picking up again.

Propagandhi thrash in unison as the song’s final lyrics conclude Failed States darker elements: “There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love.”

Propagandhi will begin touring eastern Canada and the United States on Sept. 9. While they have yet to release tour dates for Canada’s western provinces, Hannah told the Sheaf that he expects the band to be in Saskatchewan in late November or early December.

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Photo: Supplied