Vaulting the barricades of decorum and good taste, Fucked Up are a brilliantly brutal hardcore quintet from
“The 7” singles were often produced under hellish conditions,” explains guitarist 10,000 Marbles. “The album sessions were like Shangri La by comparison – we had two or three months to record. The label even paid for an on-site Tarot card reader!”
Such luxuries haven’t dampened Fucked Up’s lust to provoke and confront. Marbles describes their combustive gigs as “a real mess, a writhing mass of sweat and blood”, while the group are renowned for their forthright lyrics and sleeve-art.
“The artist has a responsibility to provoke,” offers Marbles, “To shed light on things that have become obscured, to shock their audience into a new mental state, and make them aware of new and dangerous things.”
“A lot of bands dumb themselves down to appeal to a popular audience,” adds singer Father Damian. “When they do address politics, it’s usually to offer a dumb simple solution to a huge problem. But the world is not ‘OK’. I don’t for a second think we have the ‘answers’, but we hopefully at least make people think about the questions.”
Hidden World’s music is similarly fearless, piling up the revving high-decibel guitars, with most tracks blasting past six minutes. Impressive stuff for a band whose initial ambition was simply to be “abrasive and caustic, in the tradition of the early Discharge singles.”
“This band has taught me that anything can happen,” reasons a thoughtful Damian, “But the fact that the hardcore kids can dig our long songs is a miracle.”
(C) Stevie Chick 2007
No comments:
Post a Comment