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Death To Idealism is the best punk rock record I’ve heard this year. Sonically, it’s much like the classic So What’s Left Now by the Red Dons predecessor band The Observers. Telecasters pump trebly chords on top of pummeling drums and limber and driving, almost Rezillos-like bass lines, joined by chanty, T.S.O.L.-like vocals that drip passion. The song craft, though not breathtaking, is still good enough to count as top-notch. The record conveys its dominant theme, social alienation, not only through lyrics that lament mass consumerism, religious fundamentalism, the current political direction of the United States, and the difficulty of finding one’s place in the world. It conveys alienation also by its sound: the vocals are mixed to sound distant, and as if echoing in an empty space, and the overall tone is quite cold and clinical. No doubt this is due partly to the cheap production, but it’s there nonetheless. A perfect soundtrack to feelings of rootlessness.