It's been a while since I've listened to Rise Against. They're pretty good, I've never checked out their whole discography though. I should remedy that.
Edit: Gotta finish Iced Earth's marathon first.
All I can say about the above album is...wow. The closing three tracks are about the battle of Gettysburg, from the perspective of the soldiers on both sides. This kind of dialogue always gets me thinking, about how the nature of politics (in general, I'm not playing sides here) twists so much of the narrative, that we forget in history, the people with boots on the ground didn't always have the whole picture of what was going on.
Anyways, that album, The Glorious Burden is fantastic, especially the last 3 tracks. They have a great prog feel to them without being indulgent. Epic.
Next up a double concept album.