The Casualties are back with their first new album in three years (since 2006's Under Attack) and they do not disappoint. This album is for the most part an excellent collection of old-school punk songs and anthems and it shows the band off well, even after nearly 20 years of active duty. We Are All We Have was released on August 25, 2009 on Side One Dummy Records.
Lyrically the band, as usual, alternates between personal and political songs. The first three tracks are about the scene and being in an underground band for the long haul. The next three songs are political, covering such topics as America going off its philosophical tracks, global warming, and war. After that the songs mix it up as far as subject matter. There are songs about unemployment, being forced to move away from your home because the land values go up (thereby making it to expensive to stay), being arrested, badly beaten by the cops, and thrown in prison for very little, and so forth.
Musically the first six tracks are classic style Casualties songs, fast, hard and loud (track 1 excepted but it’s more of a prologue to what follows). This is the sort of thing fans of the Casualties know and expect from these guys. And they do it very well; they’re as tight as they’ve ever been on this record.
However one of the interesting things on this record is that as the songs progress the band starts to push themselves musically – not that much, they stay firmly as The Casualties we know and love – but just a little bit to be noticeable in ways that add to their sound. This begins with the various tempos of track 7 ("In the Tombs") a song that goes from slow to fast, back to slow. This carries forward on track 8 ("Stand Against Them All") which is a big rock song, not as fast as most of their stuff, and more like something that, say, Rancid or the Clash might do (although make no mistake – Jorge’s vocals do not change one bit). Then there’s track 9 ("Depression - Unemployment Line") which has a long rhythmic and percussive opening that gradually builds over the course of the song’s first minute with the addition of all the band’s instruments (including vocals) up to the point where it breaks into the main song. Track 10 ("Looking Thru Bloodshot Eyes") also has some tempo change ups beyond the usual Casualties song but the main surprise in this song is during the run-out section the vocals become actual singing as opposed to Jorge’s usual screaming vocals – don’t know if he’s doing that or someone else is, but for a few seconds it gives a very different feel to the song. This is actually built on in track 11 ("Lonely on the Streets - Jersey City") when the back-up vocals form a sort of duet for part of the song with Jorge in a call and response kind of fashion. Also this is another big rock song (like track 8) and it has some of catchiest hooks and riffs on the whole album.
After this the band returns to classic style songs with tracks 12 and 13, both of which are under two minutes, rounding out the whole thing in a solid manner – or they would if it weren’t for track 14, which is the one weak spot on the album. Track 14 ("Rocker’s Reggae (Working Man’s Dub)"), the last track on the record, is the only one on the album that feels self-indulgent. It takes the run-out theme from the last part of track 7 and extends it into a track that lasts for over eight minutes in a repetitive manner both musically and lyrically. Normally this sort of thing appears on an album as a hidden track (if it appears at all). Honestly "We Are All We Have" could have dispensed with this track completely and not suffered at all. However since it’s the one blemish on an otherwise very solid record that ranks up there with the best of anything the Casualties have done, don’t let it stop you from enjoying this record.
