by Jason Ankeny

Granted, the title No Substance is clearly intended as a put-on, yet there's more than a kernel of truth to it as well -- with each successive release, Bad Religion seems more and more to be simply going through the motions, bludgeoning listeners with a streamlined punk attack that carries increasingly little weight. Tracks like "The Biggest Killer in American History," "Sowing the Seeds of Utopia," and "The State of the End of the Millennium Address" are the same kind of populist polemics that dominate every Bad Religion record, and that's the problem -- the group recycles the same ideas (political and musical) over and over again, to the point of their songs lacking any kind of real impact; there's no doubting Bad Religion's passion, but at this point in the game that's about all that's keeping them going.