Rise Against’s strident anti-ignorance messages have coursed through several albums of tightly wound, good-intentions punk. But as soon as frontman Tim McIlrath bridges the half-time breakdown of “Architects” by earnestly imploring, “Don’t you remember when you were young / How you wanted to set the world on fire” (echoing Against Me!’s “I Was a Teenage Anarchist” almost word for word), the singer-guitarist just sounds like he’s trying to win back an ex-girlfriend. Which could be forgiven if Endgame‘s other songs — sans the blistering “Survivor Guilt” and “Disparity by Design” — weren’t turgidly overlong and underfed.
