IV. Young For The Last Time

By the summer of 2001, the group slowed their touring schedules and began writing an ambitious follow-up to their first record, which was tentatively titled the "On The Eve of Saint Agnes."

The record was conceived of as a collection of songs organized around the themes present in the old Christian Holiday. The songs, which focused on innocence (in both the personal and political sense) and the limitations placed upon it, seemed especially appropriate in the wake of 9/11. According to John, "This album is all about exploring and exposing the connections between our own lives and the world's development... All of us were in either Queens or Manhattan on 9/11 and Ed was literally at the WTC when it happened. God I remember that day we all thought Ed was in the Towers when they collapsed." Luckily he wasn’t, but the group "stopped playing and then our first practice was when the news of all the Anthrax mailings was coming out. We weren't comfortable doing an entirely political album, ala Bad Religion. We figured that that would be done by everyone, and of course better done by bands more familiar with that genre. Yet at the same time, it was impossible to ignore the changes that had been thrust upon the world since 9/11 and I remember sitting in the basement thinking about how it would be hard to write a poppy love songs," recounts John.

Although their initial dire pessimism subsided, the group used 2002-2003 to put together a masterful tapestry of punk songs united by age old literary themes updated and applied to the postmodern era. Enlisting the help of John Agnello, the producer of the Chainsaw Kittens, one of PF's heroes, the lyrical maturity and social understanding rarely found on punk records has earned the group a new generation of underground fans.

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