You get to know a person or a set of persons, or you get to thinking you know them pretty alright. So they tell you you're doing their next record, 'cause they get to thinkin' they know you pretty alright as well, and even if you do say “No!”, it's even money you're bluffing. You'll find the money. And you love the band, the people in it, sight unseen, this thing's gonna be good. The other stuff you did for 'em, the one with the zine and the weaponry that'll get you put on a watchlist, the 7” you almost flew to Canada and went full-Wick over 'cause they missed deadline after deadline and, eventually, the whole tour, those were good. By this time time, you figure you know American Hate well enough to figure “Our Love Is Real” for a pisstake. A smarmy southern jab at the sage-and-incensification of hardcore. Then comes the day all the pieces come together, the full fuckin' package we so frequently skip out on, and it is a pisstake, just not exactly the one you were expecting. They're taking the neo-hippies to task for not being full-throated in their daily affirmations and another me for forgetting how un-alone, how un-distant we all are. We were talking progression and this is it: taking the groundwork laid out by 30 years of HC and running with it, not away from it. Stretching it to it's outer limits, rubber-banding back, doing it all over again. This is an angry record, smart and unafraid to make some squirm, but just as likely to welcome the rest of us with open arms. Their love is real, here's all the proof you need.