If someone asked me to name a band that truly encapsulates the meaning of “punk” then it would be Canadian agitators Fucked Up. For a scene that was born with lofty ideas of freedom, it didn’t take long for punk rock to descend into a generic, three-minute, studs-acne-bristles, paint-by-numbers affair. However, along with the new millennium came Fucked Up, a band who discovered that doing “un-punk” things was the most “punk” thing you could do. Subsequently, they’ve left a trail of vinyl that has, in punk’s original vision, broken every code. Latest album, Another Day finds the band in typically inventive mode, returning to the band’s roots while boldly facing down the future.

You’d think a band called “Fucked Up” would have a shelf life of maybe five minutes; the chances of getting played on daytime radio with that moniker are below zero and the same goes for terrestrial television or any type of mainstream media. Their choice of name could be viewed as a kind of commercial suicide, but omehow Fucked Up have navigated these obstacles with an existentialist philosophy that’s found them shaping the world in their own image. For their latest release, the band have taken another move that will further flummox their listeners; they’ve taken a sharp turn and gone for a great reset and have produced the most direct album of their career. “Regression” isn’t quite the right word for what’s going on here, but the band have returned to basics, and symptomatic of this is the backward masking that predominates the record; it’s symbolic and it’s as if the album is swirling rearwards and returning to the band’s genesis. Throughout the record there are nods to the band’s past, a riff taken from here and a line from there as the band rotate through time. That’s not to say that this album isn’t inventive, quite the opposite; as so often is the case, limitations (and especially those self imposed) can be the spur towards greater creativity and Another Day is bursting at the seams with ideas. Gone are the 18-minute epics, three-minute drums solos and five-minute whistling sections to be replaced by a focus on the minutiae. There’s the startling sonic shifts on the title-track between sublime ‘70s rock and hardcore punk, and this perfectly matches the duality of the lyrics. One often overlooked aspect of Fucked Up is their lyrical astuteness, which often gets lost in the shuffle. This parred back approach has the benefit of bringing the words to the fore, and the joyful chanting of “We’re the one’s that’ll burn it all down” stands in marked contrast to that statement and the causality with which those words are sung is really quite arresting.

The album reaches a conclusion of sorts with ‘House Lights’, but there’s a magical coda (similar to that found on Pet Sounds) that suggests this is a new start rather than an end.

• Another Day is released via Fucked Up Records on 9th August 2024.
• Facebook

Track List:

1. Face
2. Stimming
3. Tell Yourself You Will’
4. Another Day
5. Paternal Instinct
6. Diving Gods
7. The One To Break It
8. More
9. Follow Fine Feeling
10. House Lights