This is no fill-by-numbers, easy-to-shatter Shrinky Dink punk. I’d put Fucked Up on current hardcore’s top shelf with Out Cold. The excellence is in the inobvious details. The basic elements are there for any hardcore band to pick up on. Yes, they’ve got seething hatred, the type that oozed out of Negative Approach like a toxic sweat. But then they go and do something unexpected like add handclaps. In the same song. And it works. Instead of rifling through the song as fast as possible in a blur, they play equally as fast as they play catchy. No easy feat. They’ve also nailed the tightly wrought and well-articulated rage of early Articles of Faith, where you can hear that they’ve got anger, not only with their limbs when they’re bashing their instruments, but with their brains, which is an important distinction. (It’s the distinction between being a malcontented misfit and a meathead, really.) The title song is in the first person, from the perspective of Death’s own house band (where they continually bring the house down and kill themselves), which is a pretty fuckin’ cool twist. Incredibly recommended.
–todd (Deranged)