Sometimes things just naturally align. Like when you pick that super-fast queue at the supermarket. Or like staunch anti-gay politicians getting caught in compromising situations. Or, to take something a bit more relevant to this page, like Anti-Flag’s tour around the region coinciding with the beloved Kwun Tong livehouse’s new venue launch. For what band could better fit HA’s own venue philosophy – outspoken, political and anti-governmental – than the Pittsburgh punk veterans?

Outpoken? Check. Political? Incessantly so. Anti-government? Their first album is called Die For the Government, so yeah. The four-piece, headed up by long-time frontman Justin Sane, have worked with Greenpeace, Amnesty International, started the collective Military Free Zone and, in October, took up acoustic axe-arms at New York’s Occupy Wall Street. Indeed, over the past 20 years, their activist approach and vocal left-wing views, particularly on issues like war, feminism and the ever-growing class divide, have become almost as central to their identity as their music.

Naturally, these ideologies take centre-stage on their new upcoming ninth album, The General Strike, due out in March. The band’s calling it their ‘most aggressive’ album yet and have suggested that they’ll be adding a bit more hardcore and modern folk punk edge to their generally rather poppy punk sound. Yes, they’re angry young men, as their website reflects: “The General Strike is reckless and tight, aggressive, experimental and definitely sounds as pissed off as the band feels.”

We imagine with all this discontent floating around, they’ll have a bit to say about Hidden Agenda’s situation as well – one where governmental and fiscal factors have conspired to force the venue to relocate twice in the past three years – and it may well just set the tone for what’s in store for HA in 2012.

Mark Tjhung 

Anti-Flag play the new Hidden Agenda on February 3. Tickets: www.hiddenagendahk.com.