Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Common Life
Rating
RIYL
CursedJerry’s Kids
Cloak/Dagger
Dustheads
Tracklist
1. Son the Father2. Magic Word
3. Golden Seal
4. Days Of Last
5. Crooked Head
6. No Epiphany
7. Black Albino Bones
8. Royal Swan
9. Twice Born
10. Looking For God
11. The Chemistry Of Common Life
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Forget possibly every single thing you know about the genres of punk and hardcore, as well as everything in between when listening to the sophomore full-length from these Toronto barnburners. Fucked Up’s debut, Hidden World was as artistic and abstract as an album can get while still reverting to a rather “simplistic” genre. On this second full-length effort from Toronto’s hardest working sons since forming in 2001, Fucked Up have entered a realm of soundscapes coated with layers of obscurity without managing to sound like a bucket of slop.
Rather than succumb to a genre that has fallen into a state of staleness cluttered with bands creating the same regurgitated sounds from seminal 80’s and 90’s hardcore acts like Minor Threat, Youth of Today, Black Flag, Cro-Mags, Gorilla Biscuits, etc, Fucked up have always taken the strange way, but in retrospect, was it ever really that strange? The genre-bending sextet seems to be at their artistic best with each and every new piece of recorded material they produce. When it appears as though it’s almost impossible to overcome the critical success garnered by Hidden World or even the phenomenal Year of the Pig 7", along comes the utterly avant-garde The Chemistry of Common Life.
What makes this album so amazing are the estimated seventy separate layers containing organs, strings, winds, and the traditional instruments one would imagine associated with hardcore (including 18 guitar tracks on the album's first single, “No Epiphany”). The soft vocals that flutter through the background of various songs are provided by Toronto’s Katie Stelmanis and Brooklyn’s Vivian Girls contrasts heavily with the iconic, abrasive, and destructive (literally and figuratively) tone of lead vocalist Damian Abraham, aka Pink Eyes. Creating a range of contrasting sounds is something Fucked Up are capable of performing time and time again without flaw; the fast paced, hardcore oriented percussion counteracts the upbeat rhythmic guitars, violins, gentle female vocals, and countless other instruments, which in turn contrasts the heavyset vocals spewed from the mouth of Pink Eyes.
The Chemistry of Common Life finds Fucked Up focusing on a lyrical expedition regarding the mysteries and origins of birth, life and death while exploring the rationale behind the scientific, and questioning the religious. As on previous releases, the band remains adamant in their stance against the church and religion on tracks like “No Epiphany” and “Son The Father”, with the latter tackling this exact subject as it questions the power of a higher being with lyrics like, “It’s hard enough being born in the first place / so who would ever want to be born again?” One of the more powerful, albeit subtly so, songs on The Chemistry of Common Life is found in the second to last track, “Looking For God”. For three minutes and some odd seconds, the song builds as it climbs and clambers on through gloomy atmospheric textures one would usually associate themselves with when at a crossroads in life searching for answers, and possibly looking for help from some sort of existential source: “God”.
What should not have happened happened. What should not have been created was created, abstractly so. What should be deemed a failure succeeds, tenfold. Fucked Up are an audible anomaly wrapped within an impossible riddle within a jigsaw puzzle -- an artistic anomaly that certainly seems creatively unstoppable and destined for overwhelming success in a genre created as far away from the traditional mainstream media as possible. With forty-five pieces of recorded material and counting, it would be in absolute dishonesty to claim any other band in any genre of music “the hardest working band in the industry”. But will Fucked Up’s predicted mainstream success bring forth a claim of hardcore’s heroes, or its deconstructor? It doesn’t matter in the short-term, but what does matter is that Fucked Up keep an eye on their roots while breaking away from the traditional, generic mold put in place decades ago and continue to pump out the great jams.
--Daniel Alcinii
Comments
Ann Arbor, MI
DETH ROK!!!!
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