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We’re too old for this. That’s the thought that kept running through my head while I was listening to the new album “The Sufferer and the Witness” by Chicago quartet Rise Against. There’s no real glaring flaw in the 13 hardcore/emo punk anthems presented here: They rock acceptably hard and fast; they touch on the right politics and feelings; they scream with the proper anguish. It’s just that you’ve heard this album before. I’ve heard it before. And the good folks at Crossroads music have definitely heard it before.

This is what punk rock looks like these days, at least for the most part. It has mutated and evolved, and this is the current face. There was a time when things were markedly different, but we’ll come to that in a bit. For now, let’s talk about what this incarnation looks like.

Let me set the stage here: scattered, uneasy drums patter in the background; start-and-stop guitars and bass hit with a potent power chord wham-wham-wham. Then the music dramatically comes to a halt, and a ragged-voiced voice howls, “Wake me up inside.” Then the band launches into full-speed-ahead verse mode, the guitars and drums in fast, perfect 4/4 time, with harsh, fast screaming leading the way.

Just when things get too tedious for any human to tolerate, the catchy, harmony-heavy chorus punches its way into the fray. The emo kids shout the words and pump their fists. “Yeah! I totally wish someone would wake me up inside!” they say to themselves. The emo kids leave feeling like someone really understands them, and the heady, soul-shattering drama that composes their day-to-day existence. Rise Against leaves with a pocketful of cash, which may not be as spiritually fulfilling, but hey, who’s complaining.

But come on, who still really thinks this kind of thing has any sort of tie to real life? The whole album is fueled by pure, unadulterated posing. It’s ridiculously overwrought poetry, its loud-quiet dynamic (thanks, Nirvana), its grim determination to convince of its own high-mindedness. The music is slick and lifelessly produced, every note custom-built to ensure that it will be called hardcore by every critic, while the fans can gobble up the power chord shout-alongs and airtight harmonies. Even the title reeks of pretension. “The Sufferer and the Witness?” I can only assume they’re referring to witnessing a music critic suffer through the album, track by mercilessly grim track.

But of course, Rise Against can’t really be blamed for getting behind this kind of overtly earnest posturing. Almost since its birth, the punk scene has been struggling over what its true identity is. Which brings me to my second review of the day: The recently released demos-and-rarities Sex Pistols release called Spunk. Back in England in the mid ‘70s, the fledgling group was just beginning to coalesce as a band, with original bassist and co-writer Glen Matlock still present (sorry movie fans, no Sid Vicious to be seen here). They made these recordings while their popularity was still growing, before they had captured the imagination — and indignation — of the country.

The recordings, which date from 1976 almost up to the release of their classic “Never Mind the Bollocks,” find the Pistols exploring, trying to figure out just what their songs should sound like. They’re not as polished, nor, in all honesty, as good as the songs on “Bollocks” (most of which are later versions of tracks presented here). They’re slower and sludgier, and they lack the manic bounce and gleeful vivacity of the classic recordings. Even the few tracks here which don’t appear on “Bollocks” (“Satellite” and “Just Me”), are purely perfunctory; fine enough songs but nothing that the world was particularly bereft for not having officially released.

Still, the charm of the album is the odd, quixotic innocence still so evident here. Johnny Rotten’s yelping, atonal caterwaul, Steve Jones' desperate guitar, the insistent, 1-2-3-4 of Paul Cook’s drum: It all adds up to an exhilarating vision into a time when punk rock really meant something new. You can’t hear Malcolm McLaren lurking in the shadows here; you can’t hear the drugs and the dysfunction; you can’t hear the corporate machine swooping in to make a quick buck off the counter-culture. It’s just four disaffected, intellectual lightweights banging around in their apartment and relishing how liberating it feels. For all the musical expertise and political rhetoric a band like Rise Against can muster, its all just punk and circumstance compared to the simple, genuine pleasure of hearing Johnny Rotten gleefully bark the F word over and over, overflowing with the thrill of finally being able to cross the line so ineloquently. Maybe that is what punk was supposed to be about, after all.