ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Against Me! � Transgender Dysphoria Blues (Total Treble): Transgender Dysphoria Blues is not the Against Me! album that I wanted, and I'm still learning to live with that. By Laura Jane Grace's account, the one we're hearing is the third attempt, after band members left (Max's son Jay Weinberg disappeared without a word to the band) and demand was in confusion (2010's major-label contract-ender White Crosses sold far less than a blind listen would have you believe). She handles most of the bass, and some hack from Angels & Airwaves was given the unenviable task of doing the drums. James Bowman and Grace do their best to add guitar leads and other sonic color to songs with very little going on structurally between the chord changes. And Grace's lyrics are not just inward as expected but among her most judgmental, vengeful, morose, and yes�looking at you "F***MyLife666"�immature. After the title track and "True Trans Soul Rebel" deliver caustic portraits of living in a transitioning body, the main thing you learn about the transgender experience is that it's surrounded by death. Oh, and it sounds like it was produced by not amateur punks but amateur arena rockers, a huge letdown after Butch Vig's crunch and wall o' harmonies were often the reason why Crosses and 2007's New Wave are among the best rock records of the last 20 years.

The thing is, conventional rules don't apply here. Sick as we are of Godsmack or Chief Keef or maybe Lana Del Rey moaning about how death is their birthright, one benchmark for this record is changing the clich� of what rock has to say about it. When Grace sings "God bless your transsexual heart" to a romanticized prostitute, it might not first register as a prayer that she get home safe and alive. In the wake of Essay Anne Vanderbilt's story last week, that's all too real. Green Day and Korn sure experienced being called "f@ggots" as well as anyone who identifies with "Drinking with the Jocks," and even the archetype "Jocks" feels reductive. But anyone who's been an Against Me! fan knows "reductive" is their whole schtick, even if they taper it down to 29 minutes and largely let us fill in the meanings of whose walls they want to piss on, whose fingers they want to chop off, whose skulls they want to cave in.

So Grace, formerly known as Tom Gabel, introduced herself as a woman to little musical fanfare. This is pure back-to-the-garage, with the overarching Replacements and Dolls influences to solder it. Is it good? Certainly not as much as New Wave or White Crosses, though it's still far from the overworded sea shanties on their first three albums. Is it a harrowing experience realizing these songs will never hit as hard for someone who doesn't live in danger, or trying to write a critical analysis when you believe Grace was deeper when they were still beneath the surface? Yes, oh god. Much has been made of New Wave closer "The Ocean," where Grace (then Gabel) first revealed the desire to live as a woman. But how about White Crosses envoi "Bamboo Bones": "What God doesn't give to you/ You've got to go and get for yourself."