Bad Religion- Into the Unknown

When I think of Bad Religion, I think of hard, fast punk rock. Into the Unknown is the complete antithesis of that. After releasing the album How Could Hell Be Any Worse?, the band went in a totally different direction, focusing on progressive rock heavy on synthesizers. It was quite the departure from their previous work. The fans voiced their displeasure and the album’s musical direction was quickly abandoned by the band, which thankfully went back to their punk rock style on the Back to the Known EP.

The question is whether the album is any good. I wasn’t alive back in 1983 when the album was released on Epitaph Records, but if I heard it back then, I’d say it sucked. In 2010, it still sucks. I give the band lots of credit for trying something totally new and expanding the band’s musical ability. With that aside, Bad Religion wasn’t meant to create the style of music present on Into the Unknown. The album has been out of print since the early 1980s with no plans for a re-release by the band.

Most bands that completely change styles abruptly tend to have one main issue. That issue being that the band isn’t that adept at creating music in that genre. Not to say that the guys from Bad Religion are bad musicians, they are very talented…in the punk rock genre. I don’t hate the fact that they experimented, but the album sounds like a whole new band, not Bad Religion trying something new. That’s the main issue with this record, it sounds like a crappy version of Rush rather than Bad Religion.

Thankfully, this album is only eight tracks that do sound like a cohesive unit. It’s not like the tracks don’t seem to fit with one another. They actually do quite well and the album flows fine. That is probably where the positives end. Why the band decided to go in the prog-rock direction has never really been documented in interviews with the band, but as I said they smartened up quickly and went back to their original style. If I had to pick one track that stands up though many listens, it’s probably the third track Billy Gnosis. It’s a pretty good prog-rock song which proves that the album is not a total loss. Greg Graffin sounds out of place on the record, he seems almost unsure of his voice. A failed experiment to say the least, it costs a lot of money on Ebay on vinyl and isn’t even worth 10 bucks, except to hear one of the biggest let-downs in the history of punk music.

Grade---D-