Seventh album Another Day proves the Toronto band have plenty of freshness still to offer, returning to their early brash sound.
Over the years, Canadian punk outfit Fucked Up have made the progression from straight up hardcore to art-punk provocateurs. Breakthrough album The Chemistry of Common Life achieved Canada’s Polaris Music Prize in 2009, while David Comes To Life offered a more ambitious concept direction in 2011, an experimental ethos they’d further develop on. Now the hardcore legends are back with their most straightforward record in years.
Seventh album Another Day proves the Toronto band have plenty of freshness still to offer albeit returning to the brash sound of their early years. They deliver thrashing anthems both joyful and explosive, impressively performed in the style of a band twenty years their junior.
With the album thematically explores the highs and lows of everyday existence, the star of the show is undoubtedly vocalist Damian Abraham. His throaty style is performed with exhaustive gusto, and is, of course, aided by effects-laden guitars and furious percussion.
The opening run of tracks, beginning with the frenetic ‘Face’, flow with effortless vibrancy. Majestic second track ‘Stimming’ has Abraham sing about the joyful, self-soothing release of musical performance and later, on ‘Tell Yourself You Will’, Abraham’s roaring vocals meet a soaring riff for a chest pumping, earwormy highpoint.
Such euphoria is similarly achieved on the nihilistic-leaning ‘Paternal Instinct’ where an infectious refrain of “We’re the ones that’ll burn it all down” achieves fist pumping defiance. While, ‘Divining Gods’ offers a delightful contrast by moving the lyrical theme towards society’s false idol worship (“We’ll make our gods where we can find them” chants Ahraham),
If we’re being picky, a mid-point breather would’ve been welcomed to guard against the sense of suffocation felt towards Another Day’s second half and given a little variety. But thankfully, this is just a mild dampener on an otherwise uplifting hardcore punk experience.