Between the band’s name and the album title, I first tried hard not to make any Star Wars parallels. But I decided: The hell with that. I like The Empire Strikes Back. I like how it provides more depth to the characters and the world of the series’ canon, even if in that movie the protagonists end up in a more challenging position due to the effects of fascism and abuse. Making life harder for folks in an attempt to “build character” or “make X great again” doesn’t make for as masterful of a gambit as bad people think.
And yet, we must live in such a world, where folks who would gladly align with Darth Vader and Palpatine run the show. Thus come bands like Empired, who on their sophomore album Strikes Back speak truth to power, using the force of their melodic blend of alt-rock and SoCal punk to attack the structures built on bigotry and corruption.
Empired formed in 2023 as a collaborative jam between Jai Hansel (bass/vox), Danny Baeza (drums), and Bruce Zebal (guitars/vox). The chemistry between that core crew got them into the studio quick, and after recording their first tracks, they brought in Cameron Mosavian (guitars) to add an extra layer of depth and power to the lineup. All the members of the band have experience with other Cali rock groups (Outspoken, The Sleeping Sea King, The Overrides, and the wonderfully named Piss N’ Blood), so while Empired as a band may be new to the scene, its members have decades of collective experience on the stage.
On their first album Finding Calm in the Chaos – released in January 2024 – Empired first introduced listeners to the sharp and well-targeted criticisms in their lyrics and vocals, with the volume and fierce energy of the music powering them even further. A couple years later and the world at least twenty times worse from where that record left off, Strikes Back has Empired back for another round, even if the reactionary ultra-conservative machine just cut off their arm and told them it was their father.
Kicking off with “Iron River”, Empired peel back the corrupt and illegal sources of revenue that power the dark side of American business and industry. The metaphor of “the iron river” relates to American firearms manufacturers and dealers trading weapons across the U.S.-Mexico border. The track touches on the culture of hate that springs up around the industry, and how hard it hits the human psyche: “A pious right to justify bloodshed is a greedy lie / You can only ride the Iron River, baby, for so long.”
On “Thanks For Nothing”, the band raises the middle finger to a lack of leadership, or rather those who lead the country down the road of darkness. While I’m not certain, I expect the band wrote this in the aftermath of the 2024 election, having watched millions of people vote for disaster and feeling frustration, fear, and exhaustion bubble up in the gut. It’s the feeling of working so hard to repair the damage left in the wake of the first Trump term, only to get to the threshold of a second term to see it get torn down. It may sound defeatist for Empired to sing the chorus: “Sometimes what you want is not what you get / Just keep your head up and this is the thanks you’ll get.” But it’s a call to action to keep fighting, for no matter what the world looks like around you, whether good or bad, there’s always more work to do.
“Just A Phase” and “Money” center around superficial matters that poison the heart, with the band waxing vicious about doomed love centered on material and physical pleasures on the former and the intoxicating draw of cold hard cash on the latter. It’s a criticism of how people love to get led through life by that which tickles their lowest chakra, but it accepts that those temptations remain baked into society, and any of us can fall to their delicious smells.
There’s a lot of depth to the lyrics of “Parking Lot”. It paints the moment of a public argument right before it could blow up into a brawl. But it also shows the one-sided nature of the situation, with the subject doing mental gymnastics to wonder if it’s worth it to fight for his case or just walk away. The hook – “Desire! Conspire!” – reflects the internal battle, doing mental gymnastics to push through and appease a negative source for the sake of pursuing pleasure, if there’s any still left. “Bitter Pills” also touches on the theme of going through tough situations, acting as a sort of follow-up to “Parking Lot”, with both songs taking a slower tempo.
“Spite” kicks the speed back up to ‘80s hardcore levels, reflecting the work of Bad Brains, Black Flag, and Minor Threat. Empired touch on both sides of spite in the world today: The spite that comes from people who spew hatred as a means for self-preservation, and the spite that comes from everyone else seeing the bigotry as an ugly facade. Empired find themselves in the second camp: “Believe the fake is the greatest escape because we can point our fingers at everybody else.” With this lyric, Empired spite not just bigots, but those who fall in line behind them thinking it will help them get ahead in life. (How’s that worked out for those folks lately, by the way?)
“Blood on the Ceiling”, the album’s penultimate track, centers around growing up with a mentally unstable parent who struggles with addiction. Confusion, pain, and forgiveness fill the song, providing a new lens in an album which has centered around the concept of having to fight. The lyrics center around a different kind of battle, one more quiet and persevering, choosing humility and hard work over pushing back against the forces that trouble us, since those forces aren’t always to blame. “Blood upon the ceiling / Wash what you can while every stain gets stronger, every stain gets larger”, the band sings. Sometimes battles don’t end in victory, but through choosing the humble path, there’s at least the chance of a stalemate, of quietude, of hope.
The album’s final track, “R.H.L. (Revisionist History Lesson)”, ends things with a reggae-tinged beat, taking a turn from the rest of the record. Like “Spite”, “Iron River”, and “Thanks For Nothing”, the song attacks those who fall in line behind bigots and use their own hatred to justify American exceptionalism and imperialism. But it also spurs people to not turn a blind eye to what’s happening around them and not to let those filled with hatred remake the world in their image. Returning to a punk sound for a coda to the record, the band sings a line for unity in times of crisis and despair: “If I lose my hope,, you will still be there for me / If you lose your hope, I will still be there for you.”
And that ends the record, although vinyl fanatics who pick up the LP also receive a live version of Empired’s track “KGWe” recorded at Alex’s Bar in Long Beach, CA. The band describes the track as “a love song about kicking Nazis in their stupid fuckin’ teeth.” More love songs should be about that.
While listening to Strikes Back, I was reminded of the classic Chumbawumba track “Tubthumping”: “I get knocked down, but I get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down.” Boff Whalley said the song was about the resilience of ordinary people, and when people started associating the track with the right wing, Whalley scoffed: “The right doesn’t have any good songs. That’s why they keep trying to nick ours!”
Empired’s new record has that same vibe: It’s a testament to folks like you and me continuing to fight even when the chips are down, when the might of the empire seems too strong, when the fuckery comes on too fast. It’s an album for chugging down a glass bottle of whatever beverage suits your fancy, then smashing it against the wall and using the remains to cut the carotids of those doing their damnedest to keep the working class pinned against the boards. It’s a testament to always getting up again and being ready to fight another round. After all, I didn’t hear no bell. Did you?
Take a listen to Strikes Back below.
Written by Will Sisskind
