REVIEW: Broken Social Contract‘s politically charged rock music will have 11 different personalities

Frustrated and afraid, the band marches forward with devil horns araising.

As the US presidential elections draw near, many artists across the United States have been making their presence known and their voices heard. But if there’s one state in the US where political tension is witnessed the closest, it would be Washington DC.

Among these outcriers is an underground alt-rock band called Broken Social Contract. Although little is known about the band, apart from the fact that they are fronted by Justin Donnelly, their adamant attempt at revitalizing a sound that has long passed its prime is something to be admired, despite a few hiccups in its execution.

Trump’s Still in Washington

Prior to the release of their first single for an upcoming album titled 11 Songs From 11 Personalities — set to release sometime in 2021 — Broken Social Contract has had the blueprint for the ‘Still in Washington’ title for quite some time but was never executed until Trump’s Still in Washington was released.

“It actually started out as a different song about Congress and the disconnect in both houses to the general [public],” the band wrote in an exclusive interview. “It was just called ‘Still in Washington,’ but even before that, we did a bit of a spoof on [Robert Mueller].”

And while the band’s idea for Still in Washington was first realized as a political satire on the Mueller probe aptly titled Robert Mueller Special Counsel, their second attempt at a Still in Washington track — now titled Trump’s Still in Washington — doesn’t feel like the revitalized concept for a political rock track as it may seem.

I would even argue that Robert Mueller Special Counsel was the superior, politically-charged song for its gimmicky Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp pastiche, even for its divergence from the original concept.

As a song, Trump’s Still in Washington is held back by two glaring, conjoint issues, and the lyrics suffer the most for it: tackiness and a lack of depth.

Given that Trump’s Still in Washington is a song critical of the Trump administration, begging to be heard and sang along to in protests, keeping the lyrics concise enough to get the message across is paramount. It is not an inherent fault committed by songwriters, per se. In many cases, particularly in pop and punk genres, brevity is a key element to making a great song.

However, the subtleties that may be found in Trump’s Still in Washington’s lyrics that make a powerful statement against Donald Trump’s atrocities in the White House are blurred somewhere between the lines if not absent.

Despite its overall cheesiness, Trump’s Still in Washington is proof of Broken Social Contract’s unwavering integrity in politics. Such disappointment I, a sole music reviewer, had with the song for reasons stated above holds no candle to the feeling of resentment the band has for Trump — a collective emotion that resonates within people from Washington and beyond.

Fear

Following up on their middling track, Trump Still in Washington, Broken Social released their latest single, Fear.

Assuming the track follows the same narrative as its predecessor considering the time of its release, one might interpret Fear as an allegory of the quarantine experience under the Trump administration, as has referenced in the lyrics.

“Can’t you see all the time
We spent locked inside
Because we can’t see through
These prison walls we’ve built out of fear?”

But even without an overarching narrative thrown into the mix, Fear still has a strong foundation built upon itself as far as its fear concept goes.

Fear shares a few similar elements with Trump’s Still in Washington — from its overdriven and theatrical guitar riffs and passages that blend hard rock and heavy metal from the 1980s to Donnelly’s raspy singing style, both of which are reminiscent of Alice Cooper’s shock-rock sound — but has a more focused direction this time around.

Fear has an already-familiar rock structure that follows a fixed, syncopated drum pattern with occasional fills, backed by a restrained octave rhythm on the verse, an explosive chorus, and dark and breezy synthesizers that pop up in the pre-chorus. Of course, it wouldn’t be an ’80s-style rock anthem without a guitar solo.

In a way, Fear’s dark and gothic veneer on the lyrics department reminds me of Alice Cooper and Hollywood Vampires (a rock supergroup Cooper is a part of) while its blazingly impassioned guitar work is akin to that of Def Leppard or Van Halen. Then again, these tropes have made countless crossovers over the course of rock history, especially during the glam metal scene, but that is not to say it no longer works in 2020.

Despite these artistic resemblances, Fear is far from being a rip-off of other acts that (may) have inspired its sound and is ultimately a more cohesive song than Trump’s Still in Washington.

Final Thoughts

It is hard to make heads or tails of what Broken Social Contract might bring to the table with their new album, 11 Songs From 11 Personalities, given at the time of writing this review, we only have a few songs to make observations out of.

But interestingly, during my conversation with the band, they stated that their next album will follow a genre-fluid direction.

“This album is called 11 Songs From 11 Personalities,” the band wrote. “This is the first album I have done that has not followed a genre.”

From a band that, up until this point, has established itself as a straightforward alt-rock band, it is exciting to see what other personalities they have to offer.

It would be interesting if they expand upon their tried-and-tested musical style and explore different sound palettes whilst retaining their own, which would give us a clearer understanding of what makes Broken Social Contract stand out amongst the crowd.