For Blood and Empire is the sixth studio album by the American
punk rock band
Anti-Flag. It was released on March 21, 2006. It was the band's first release on
RCA Records, which caused the band to receive
criticism from many due to their initially
anti-corporate message.[2]
Background
The booklet which comes with the CD contains a short essay for all but two songs ("State Funeral" and "Cities Burn") which gives more in-depth perspective on the inspirations for the song subjects such as the
Downing Street Memo and
Monsanto Company Corporation, as well as information on one of Anti-Flag's side projects, Military Free Zone. The CD also comes with two stencils, of the "Gunstar", a star formed with broken M-16s as seen on the cover of Mobilize, and the phrase "What are we going to do about the U.S.A.?".
Mike Ski of
The A.K.A.s did the art direction, design and layout design for the album art.[3]
The song "Emigre" (which on the promotional version was originally called "Exodus") includes an adaptation of
Martin Niemöller's poem "
First they came".