Fucked Up

The first 45 seconds of Fucked Up’s 2008 breakout LP, The Chemistry of Common Life, are an epic bluff. A serene, meandering flute solo opens the record, a butterfly greeting a meteor. Fucked Up makes its proper entrance—the band’s burly, balding frontman howls. You can hear the spit-strings snapping in the back of his throat.

While Fucked Up’s sound is easily and aptly defined by its three-guitar wall of sound, bold-faced punk rock volume, and the sheer presence of growling frontman Damian Abraham (a.k.a. Pink Eyes, a.k.a. Father Damian), the flute says more about the band’s character.

Since forming in 2001, the Canadian hardcore band has made mischief. To be fair, they’ve made a recorded catalog expansive enough to count as a collection, too. But between the 18-minute, multi-part epics, sonic experimentation and self-made mythology, Fucked Up legendary well before the big indie label Matador inked its imprint on the back of Chemistry, Fucked Up’s second proper full-length album.

Since joining indie rock’s upper echelon, Fucked Up hasn’t relaxed. They even cut a charity single featuring guest spots from Nelly Furtado, AFI’s Davey Havok, GZA and Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig. They’re as likely to cover The Ramones or Pennywise at a show as they are to morph a two-chord hardcore rager into a sprawling, psychedelic suite. Their records are ambitious, lush and repeatedly compelling. Their shows are ecstatic. They draw from deep catalogs of indie pop, punk, hardcore and psychedelic rock. The songs are tuneful and melodic, even when they sound like grinding shards of broken glass, and visceral, even when they’re at their most anthemic.

The only thing predictable Fucked Up ever did was get noticed. And that was more inevitable than predictable, anyway. —Bryan Reed