Against Me! August 22, Brooklyn Bowl.

My first encounter with Against Me! came in high school, when a friend played “Those Anarcho Punks Are Mysterious” from 2002’s Reinventing Axl Rose. Gritty, crusty and lo-fi, it provided a perfect intro to punk music. Years later, I gave Searching for a Former Clarity and New Wave a few spins each, and nothing stood out for me the way that first album did. And when I heard White Crosses in 2010, I figured Against Me! was as good as done. Then Laura Jane Grace arrived.

Against Me’s latest release, January’s Transgender Dysphoria Blues, is a return to the band’s raw, punk aesthetic, stripping away the polish of its predecessor and focusing on vulnerable levels of personal-is-political depth. Grace sings feverishly about acceptance—and sometimes painfully—about her private struggle and then public transition as a transgender woman. Friday night’s Brooklyn Bowl show tackled that material, as Grace’s onstage banter lent to trans*-positive, inspirational topics, like kicking “poisonous people” from your life on Dysphoria’s “Black Me Out.” “You want them to see you/Like they see every other girl/They just see a faggot/They’ll hold their breath not to catch the sick,” Grace screamed during the pre-chorus on “Transgender Dysphoria Blues,” which she introduced as “a song about ignorance.”

The band’s latest lineup solidifies the group’s improved dynamism; sometime-Rocket From the Crypt drummer Adam “Atom” Willard earned a star for his contributions to the energetic evening. But in the end the takeaway was Grace, in all her glory.