Damn it, Matador just keep on doing it! This is the second album from the Toronto band with the moniker unlikely to trouble daytime radio (at least in the UK, where we can be frightfully uptight and repressed about these sorts of things). As well as the being the latest in a long line of great releases from Matador, it adds to a frighteningly long list of music released over the last half decade by the band themselves.
Fucked Up don’t have a MySpace, which seems pretty damn radical and anti-establishment in 2008. Hell, to describe Fucked Up is to flail around for descriptions only to find that they’re far from watertight. They are a hardcore punk band, who have released tracks that are eighteen minutes long and used multitracking. Opener ‘Son The Father’ starts off with bloody flutes, for goodness sake. If you think ‘hardcore’ means anti-melodic, short bursts of noise, complete with worthy but inaudible lyrics, then Fucked Up have come to change your perception of that. They’re punks at heart, but they bring punk, and hardcore punk at that, a reinvigorated feeling. This is an album that does not stop for breath, but contains as much invention as you could hope for from a Flaming Lips album.
Having made it onto the cover of NME and gained a fair amount of coverage, there will be no doubt those who scream “sellout”! Each repeated play of The Chemistry of Modern Life reveals something new. From first single ‘No Epiphany’ to the closing title track, this album is sure to feature in many of the year’s ‘Best Of’ lists.
//Ed Jupp