This Is The World I Brought You Into: Propagandhi Talk 'Victory Lap'

Photo: Greg Gallinger

There’s a phrase that Propagandhi's Chris Hannah keeps coming back to when discussing their new record, ‘Victory Lap’: rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

From its title, which makes it feel like we’re offering each other high fives while surveying the mess we’ve made, to its sleeve image of a theme park rollercoaster reclaimed by the sea, it’s not a record that offers an arm around the shoulder.

And neither should it. We’re almost two decades along the line from the release of Fuck The Border, but that song’s lyrics couldn’t be more prescient. This past weekend, meanwhile, Hannah responded to Donald Trump’s NFL/anthem grandstanding with a tweet from the band’s account: “teenage me wasn't wrong: Stick the fucking flag up your goddamn ass you -- etc etc”. That reference dates to 1993, but he could also have dialled up 2009’s Dear Coach’s Corner had the mood struck.

‘Victory Lap’ is a record that discusses legacy - what we leave behind and what state we leave the world in - on a regular basis. In that sense it’s both fiercely critical but also aspirational. Sometimes. Depending what light you view it in. Or the time of day. Or the day of the week.

“I’m a little bit inoculated to that at this point, as people tend to get as they get older,” Hannah says. “I think that I’ve come to the conclusion that civilisation itself is a problem. Where do you go from there? Once you realise that, that you can potentially descend into nihilism. And I don’t want people to do that.

“The things that are left in society that I find interesting and inspirational and potentially transformative in terms of salvaging what’s left are things like the Black Lives Matter movement and the Indigenous Resistance movement here in North America. Those are things we should be paying attention to and learning from in the meantime, before everything collapses.”

The album’s final song, Adventures in Zoochosis, and its second single, Failed Imagineer, both confront that idea of inheritance and the circular nature of our failings. The latter, a stinging slice of cause and effect stemming from experiences of war, hinges on the line: “This is the world I brought you into.”

“The references are all real, personal anecdotes but by design there’s no real conclusion,” Hannah says. "I guess the core of it is me, talking to my son or my dad talking to me. Or his dad talking to him. This endless chain of fathers talking to sons - in this instance - and lamenting the world that they're leaving behind for them.”

...Zoochosis is among the most personal songs Hannah has penned. Its opening moments juxtapose the sound of his children playing with samples of Trump on the campaign trail: “We’re going to build that wall. We have no choice.” Later he frames himself almost as a spent force. “Boys, I bowed to the keeper’s whip for so damn long,” he sings. “I think the sad truth is that this enclosure is where your old man belongs.” The album’s final thrashings offer that glimmer of hope, though, as he points to a future generation stepping off the merry-go-round.

“The song is about the dichotomy between that sort of hope and innocence and earnestness compared to me, who feels downtrodden and powerless despite my privilege,” he says. “The hope is that they’ll do more than I did. I’m not even saying that I’m done. It’s just a song. But it’s an emotion or state of mind I probably have always grappled with, particularly at this age.

“Sometimes I’m like, ‘It’s over. It’s over. Fuck it. Stick a fork in it.’ Twenty minutes later I’ll be inspired to do something by somebody else. We don’t really have culture here in western, capitalist industrial societies. We consume. That’s what we do. This is wondering, ‘What am I willing to sacrifice to make the world better?’ And I don’t know what my limits are. I hope that young people coming up will push their limits to salvage something sane out of this insane system.”

Then there’s the musical counterpoint to the lyric sheet. In fine late-era Propagandhi fashion, ‘Victory Lap’, fucking rages. It’s direct, uncompromising and anthemic, landing somewhere between ‘Potemkin City Limits’ and the more outwardly melodic sections of ‘Supporting Caste’. Written largely as a three piece - with drummer Jord Samolesky aiding and abetting Hannah and bassist Todd Kowalski in turn - it also finds guitarists David ‘Beaver’ Guillas and Sulynn Hago dropping in to add contributions that Hannah describes (correctly) as “weird and cool”.

Several songs here - notably Failed Imagineer and In Flagrante Delicto - are at times as straightforwardly hook-driven as Propagandhi get, while others are riff-obsessed. All of them have that slightly askew strangeness that has always set the band apart from the pack.

During the writing process, two separate approaches were at work. Kowalski’s songs here - Nigredo and When All Your Fears Collide - are powerful, rumbling beasts he pored over following the death of his father. They’re gut-wrenchers and among his finest work. “The whole time, the year of making songs in my head is complete despair,” Kowalski said recently. “It’s partly why I only have two songs on the record.”

“Whenever someone else is writing something I step back and let them do what they want to do and not interfere,” Hannah says. “You’re more likely to get the essence of the song if you don’t get your own fingerprints on what someone else is doing. Just letting him work his way through the emotion and ideas is what Jord and I both tried to do.”

Hannah, meanwhile, has young kids at home and snatched moments here and there to write. He admits to having workshopped songs for small eternities in the past, but not this time. That could mean a record that is dashed off, but ‘Victory Lap’ instead feels lean and confrontational.

“Music-wise, my philosophy was 'first riff that sounds good that’s the song',” Hannah says. “Let’s not try to control it. Let’s let the music go somewhere on its own. It was more fun to write that way and in a lot of cases it worked better. The songs were more surprising and I like the sense of not being certain, from a writing standpoint. I don’t have time in my life to be labouring over 12 songs at two in the morning. I just don’t have time.”

People generally have a lot to say when Propagandhi put out a new record. There will (still) be a few who can’t get over the fact that they don’t play ‘How To Clean Everything’-style skate punk anymore. There will be others who miss the grinding heaviness of ‘Failed States’. But, right now, this stripped-back, fist-in-the-air collection of songs feels vital. Songs aren’t acts of protest in a vacuum, but they can get people together in a room. Maybe that’s a start.

‘Victory Lap’ is out on September 29 through Epitaph.

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