…Propagandhi is a band that has defeated the curse of age over the last few decades by the simple trick of changing their musical trajectory every few albums. They were elevated from their snotty high school punk band days in Manitoba by Fat Mike, who signed them to Fat Wreck Chords.
Their first two albums, How to Clean Everything (1993) and Less Talk More Rock (1996), incorporated the sound of spiky, dangerously melodic contemporary SoCal punk but wrote radically far-left songs with it. It was like Chomsky fronting a skate punk band, but unlike the academic airiness of Greg Graffin, it felt more raw, more capable of inducing a riot.
After the departure of songwriting wizard John K. Samson (who left the band to found…