Aversion.com writes this about the new album:

The Empire Strikes First is said to carry some of the most pointed social commentary of any of the punk act's albums. Among notable tracks, the band teams up with rapper Sage Francis for "Let Them Eat War," a Bush-baiting number. Nonetheless, the act says its follow-up to 2002's The Process of Belief, still has songs that will stand up after the current political situation is no more than a memory.

"The songs are general enough that in ten years time, we won?t be embarrassed we wrote these songs," said singer Greg Graffin in a statement. "A lot of times people write about things that are too specific and they become dated pretty quickly."