One of the benefits of this modern age of music is that an artist can opine on current events in real time. If you released a protest song back in the day, by the time the thing got recorded, the records were pressed, and the label was ready to put it out, you might have been singing about something that had happened a year or more earlier. But these days, modern technology has greatly reduced (and in some cases, virtually eliminated) the turnaround time between writing and releasing a song. And if you're a protest singer in 2026, that's ideal. Ryan Allen is not always a protest singer, but he certainly doesn't shy away from using his art and his platform to weigh in on what's happening in America. He is passionate about social justice and (to put it mildly) deeply concerned about the political climate of the moment. "Shit is fucked" is his technical assessment of the situation, and he's not wrong.
If you had told me even a decade ago that we'd soon be living in times where white supremacy would be rebranded as a perfectly respectable political choice, anti-fascism would become a partisan stance, an outgoing president could incite an insurrection and subsequently get re-elected in an electoral landslide, and half the nation would bend over backwards to justify masked government agents executing protestors in the streets, I would have considered that a fiction too absurd to be published. But here we are. A wise man once asked the musical question "What are we gonna to do now?", and what Ryan Allen has done is written some songs that he hopes will inspire resistance and raise some money for the cause. They're Coming For Us, his brand-new EP, is his effort to use his talents "as a weapon against hate, oppression, and the doomscroll world that we're all living in." All proceeds from this release will be donated to Democracy Forward.
Musically, this EP delivers a little bit of everything that I enjoy about Ryan Allen. The title track finds him going back to his roots in punk rock, and the message is not subtle. If you're willing to embrace authoritarianism in America because they're going after "those people," don't act shocked when they eventually come for you. "This Ugly" is vintage Ryan Allen indie power pop and confronts the distressing realization that we can no longer assume that most people are decent, kind-hearted humans who reject hate. The EP concludes with "Hurry Up and Wait," which finds Allen adopting the classic guitar-and-voice only approach to protest singing. The song ponders a question that has been on my mind as well: When will this lunacy end — if it does at all?
They're Coming For Us was produced, mixed, and mastered by Robby Miller. It sounds fantastic, and the songs are as inspired musically as they are lyrically. The EP is a $5 download from Bandcamp. 100% of Allen's cut will go towards the defense of democracy. Again, not that many years ago, the mere notion that we'd ever have to worry about preserving democracy in America might have seemed ludicrous. But I'll be honest: I'm pretty damn worried.
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