Few modern bands have a fan base as passionately torn among themselves as Against Me!'s. The Gainesville, Florida, punk-rock foursome are both loved and hated (especially hated since signing to Sire, a major label, last year) and their decisions are constantly criticized via blogs and message boards.

Those aligned against Against Me!, those who spend hours talking shit, actually once loved the band and probably still love their debut full-length, Reinventing Axl Rose (as they should). And that's why they hate them now.

Since coming together in the late '90s, AM! spent years carting their punk music through basements and DIY spaces across the nation, making their own T-shirts and releasing records on indie labels like Fat Wreck Chords and No Idea while singing out against the government, consumerism, and war.

Their personal approach to the music allowed fans to feel like they were a part of the band—singer Tom Gabel became their voice, and the band's energetic, audience-participation-heavy shows made fans feel like they were as crucial to the movement as the four men onstage.

But as the band started to outgrow the basements, book larger tours, and score stadium gigs with Green Day, those fans from the early days felt betrayed. Then AM!, the band that once sang that they didn't care about making money from music, signed to Sire. Shit hit the fan, and people started hating the album before it was even written based solely on the fact that Sire was putting it out. In fact, during an interview for punksite.com, Gabel addressed criticism and name calling: "Sellout is the new witch hunt," he said. "It's a very McCarthyism type of finger-pointing way to be."

Well, the band's major-label debut, New Wave, is done and waiting for its summer release. Surprisingly, the band don't overtly address their hardcore fans' concerns. Instead, they stick to familiar ground—protesting war ("White People for Peace") and feeling alienated as an American in a foreign land thanks to our leaders' decisions ("Americans Abroad"), and taking a few jabs at the music industry ("Up the Cuts"). "Thrash Unreal" is a narrative about a self-destructive club girl (and sounds like an Against Me!-ified Hold Steady song), and "Stop" nods slightly to Q and Not U with a dancey drum beat and the catchy, repetitive chorus, "Stop/take some time to think/figure out what's important to you."

There's absolutely nothing to hate on this album. And yet it's not even on shelves, and many punk-rock message boards (and a number of my friends) say it's bullshit.

Well Jawbreaker's Dear You was that band's major-label debut too, and it is a great fuckin' record (except for the song "Oyster"). New Wave isn't Dear You, but it isn't the predicted major-label backwash so many expect it to be. Give it a listen before writing it off. If you still decide to hate it, at least you'll have a better reason than the small-minded "it's on a major, fuck that shit." That's never an intelligent argument.

Against Me! play with Mastodon, Cursive, and Planes Mistaken for Stars on Sat May 5 at the Fenix, 6 pm, $22 adv/$25 DOS, all ages.