I first came across Against Me! in middle school as a rebellious teenager attached to the banging throb of “Thrash Unreal.” The band’s sound hasn’t changed much in the past seven years, yet in purposeful contrast to the album New Wave their new record Transgender Dysphoria Blues resembles the unleashing of an angry youth’s smothered hatred. The album, as implied by the name, chronicles the anxiety and destructive tendencies of an adolescent struggling with gender identity. The album release coincides closely with the coming out of singer Laura Jane Grace as a transgender woman. Although “Black Me Out” isn’t far from the mood of “Thrash Unreal,” it screams out with urgency and a desire for change.
Against Me! isn’t afraid to curse. Or scream. Or be destructive. What makes the band great is its impulsiveness, its punk flame, its need for release. Listening to “Black Me Out” is like reading a teenager’s pissy diary, but in the most witty and loveable sense possible. More than anything the song represents all the retribution we should be inflicting on those shitheads we knew in high school — that is, if we blacked out and lost all inhibition and reason.