Fucked Up - Couple Tracks

There are a lot of songs on here.

2011 was the year David Comes to Life came out and I couldn't get enough of it. I'd got The Chemistry of Common Life a few years before and enjoyed it, but David Comes to Life blew me away so much more than I was expecting. From that point onwards I was a big fan of Fucked Up and decided to up my game and get some more of their records. I picked up Couple Tracks a few months later in 2011 and, on the surface, it seemed like an ideal purchase - compiling songs from their huge back-catalogue of releases, most of which I'd almost certainly never hear otherwise.

That said, after the continuity and grandeur of David Comes to Life, perhaps 25 disparate hardcore songs wasn't what I needed. I certainly remember thinking that at the time. It's a good compilation and has some great songs, but I remember finishing it and thinking I just wanted to listen to David Comes to Life again. I still get that feeling a bit. For obvious reasons, it doesn't flow like their albums do, and does drag a bit in places. Like I said, there are a lot of songs.

The highlight has to be I Hate Summer; I enjoyed that one from the first play, and like how often they seem to play it live. The opener, No Pasaran, sounds like it could be a Black Flag cover, Toronto FC has a lot in common with the later Fucked Up songs that I was more into and I Don't wanna Be Friends With You is just a great, simple hardcore song. I knew the Daytrotter songs from hearing the sessions a few years beforehand, so knew they were messed up (and not necessarily in a good way - I vaguely remember seeing a video of the show they played in a bathroom in Vienna that they mentioned somewhere too - it was on a website where they'd get bands to play in strange places around Austria). The insert has some comments from the band about each song - No Violins has a particularly funny story about Owen Pallett, who would go on to play violins on a bunch of Fucked Up albums.

I bought this record at the No Idea yard sale at Fest. The person cashing up for me had to look up the price for this one and warned me that it was a bit expensive because it was a distro record rather than one of their own - I can't remember the exchange rate at the time, but it worked out at less than £10, which was crazy cheap for a double LP. It's hard to explain to someone that everything seemed cheap because of the exchange rate without sounding like a twat, so I didn't; of course I wouldn't be laughing now. The records say "non-breakable" on them, which is a promise I'm not willing to test.

Format: Double 12", insert
Tracks: 26
Cost: £9.92 new
Bought: Fest
When: 30/10/11
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Fucked Up - Year of the Tiger

When I was getting into Fucked Up I was "warned" about their Chinese Zodiac series. I can't remember who it was that told me about them (it was someone I knew in South Wales), but they said that they were too weird and not a patch on the albums. Whilst they're very different to the songs they put on their albums, I think the Zodiac songs I've heard have been great and I love seeing what they do when they let themselves play on for 15-20 minutes. It's like they're two different bands, and I enjoy both in different ways.

Year of the Tiger was the first of the series I heard, finding a copy in Banquet around the time it came out in 2012. Between getting into them in 2008 and buying this 12", I'd seen the band a bunch of times and fallen in love with David Comes to Life, my album of the year in 2011. Whilst I might not have been in the right place to get into such a record four years earlier in South Wales, I was fully on board with Year of the Tiger from the off. For a hardcore band, they seem to have taken to writing very long songs well - Year of the Tiger holds my attention from the start and never feels boring or relies on repetition to pad it out. The mixture of the vocals and the piano hiding in the background add so much. It's a great song and I play it quite often. Onno (Excerpt) isn't as enjoyable on it's own - it floats through some interesting moments over its 22-minutes but does so very gradually, instrumentally and kind of hypnotically. When I was warned about the series, I thought it could be more like this, which might justify such a warning. However, with Year of the Tiger on the a-side, it's a 100% recommendation instead.

I've been meaning to buy more of the series, but I don't often find them in my local record shops - so far I only have the Japanese 7" of Year of the Pig and Year of the Snake. Part of the problem is that I have a terrible memory for which ones I have, but that's more a reflection on my bad memory than it is a comment about the series itself. I'm looking forward to hearing more of them as and when I find them.

Format: 12", insert

Tracks: 2

Cost: £4.65 new

Bought: Banquet Records, Kingston

When: 08/02/12

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: Download code

Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Common Life

The Chemistry of Common Life was the first Fucked Up record I heard. The band's live reputation had long preceded them and for a fairly long time they were one of those bands everyone raved about. I eventually saw them supporting Gallows in Cardiff University; one housemate was a huge Gallows fan, another a huge Fucked Up fan and Alex and I went along because we knew at very least we'd enjoy the show and it was just around the corner from our house. I was very impressed by Fucked Up and now try to see them each time I can - they're a reliably incredible live band and, in the right venue (The Peel in Kingston, for example), they can be unbelievable.

A few months after that first show, The Chemistry of Common Life came out. Someone in the house had a copy and it was proving a divisive album - Black Albino Bones being one of the most hotly discussed topics. Personally I quite enjoyed the addition of Dallas Green's vocals and the way the band were inventing and experimenting on top of traditional hardcore really appealed to me. I picked up this copy in Spillers (as my Tuesday record for that week) a few weeks later.

For me, The Chemistry of Common Life is the beginning of the Fucked Up I know. I'd never really listened to their earlier material, so this was all I knew and I liked it (of course, David Comes to Life came out and blew me away even further). There are songs that have gone on to be live favourites of mine - I get so excited when they start playing Son the Father, No Epiphany, Black Albino Bones or Twice Born. The album has some huge choruses, which is good because it's near impossible to sing along with Damian to the verses; they make for some great moments of crowd participation during shows. The final side of the record makes for interesting listening on it's own - the slow build-up of Looking For God and the whispered and explosive start to the 8-minute long title-track where the guitars practically sing the chorus. It's quite the way to close an album.

I had completely forgotten that the LP contains a vinyl-only bonus track in the middle of the album, The Peaceable Kingdom. It's a rare treat to get vinyl-only bonus tracks, but I know the band are fans of the format (particularly 7"s) so I can see why it's there. It's a good song too - reminds me of I Hate Summer in its style. On top of that, it's a very nice double vinyl package. In fact, the Fucked Up section of my record collection looks great due to their wide, white spines and bold font.

Format: Double 12", gatefold sleeve, 12x24" poster

Tracks: 12

Cost: £13 new

Bought: Spillers

When: 19/11/08

Colour: Black

Etching: none

mp3s: no

Fucked Up - Year of the Pig

At the Independent Label Market in London last year I got some gems on vinyl. Some of the highlights came from the Matador Records 7" box, which was three records for a tenner. There was a good handful of records I could have happily bought, but in the end I opted for this Japanese release of Fucked Up's Year of the Pig, a Modest Mouse test press and a Jesu record from the Matador Singles Club. Three records by bands I like that I certainly wouldn't have sought out unless they were in front of my eyes like that. I'm very glad I bought them.

Fucked Up have released more 7" records than I care to count and I've not made much of an effort to buy any of them, despite becoming a big fan over the last few years (David Comes to Life was my album of 2011 and the albums either side of it were excellent too). This hasn't become the beginning of a collection (yet) but it is very pleasing. I think I've always been fascinated by Japanese versions of records since I got a few Japanese Manics cds back in the day. If I ever go I know I'll spend a small fortune on music. It will be excellent.

Year of the Pig is a pretty interesting song - it spends most of the time with some gentle vocals before briefly becoming a song more similar to Fucked Up's other material. It's much shorter than some of the later Year of the... songs but hints at where that series was going. By contrast, The Black Hats sounds very simple and almost reminiscent of 70's punk. The artwork is different to the UK/US release and included is a mini-poster with Japanese lyrics, which is a nice touch. All in all, a pretty lovely find for £3.33.

Format: 7", a4 poster
Tracks: 2
Cost: £3.33 new
Bought: Independent Label Market
When: 13/07/13
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Fucked Up - David Comes to Life

David Comes to Life topped the list of my top ten records of 2011. I think I knew that would be the case before the other half the year had even happened. I can't remember which song appeared on the internet first, the brilliant introduction of Queen of Hearts ("Hello my name is David / Your name is Veronica!" is a huge chorus) or the more elaborate The Other Shoe, but I was suitably impressed by both and eagerly awaited the album's release. When I first played it, I had to play it again straight away because I couldn't wait to hear it another time.

I became a fan of Fucked Up much later than most, so to me they've never been about 2-minute hardcore songs; I first heard them when The Chemistry of Common Life came out and the music on there is the Fucked Up I got into. This album takes my favourite aspects of the last record, throws in a large serving of concept album (I'm a sucker for a concept album), spreads it all out over 18 songs and makes an incredible album of it. I can never quite figure out if Damian's vocals are at odds with the music the other five are playing, or if they've created something entirely new that works perfectly together; at times he's working to a beat of his own, but then it keeps finding a rhythm with the rest of the band. Queen of Hearts, Turn the Season and I Was There all give examples of this. On Serve me Right he sings the chorus faster than I can even read the lyrics. There's also the contrast between the gruff male vocals and the smooth female ones on The Other Shoe, Running on Nothing and throughout almost all of the album.

I'll be honest, the plot of the album does lose me a little and, despite a number of attempts, I can't quite follow it. I've read people's ideas about what's going on, but that's just confused me more (somehow the narrator is part of the story?). Yet I still think the album is great. Maybe it's enough to know there is a plot holding these characters and songs together, or maybe it's just that I love the music so much it doesn't matter. (The significance of all the songs having three-word titles is lost on me too.) There are highlights throughout the album, but I particularly enjoy the five songs from Act 4 (it could be because they provide closure to a story I don't get, but it's more likely that they're just great songs). I Was There demands my whole attention every time I hear it.

I've been putting off writing about this album for ages, because I knew it would take ages to write. On top of that there's all the pictures to take of the things inside the sleeve. They've made a nice package here (all pictured below): a fake cover with a poem on the back, a gatefold sleeve (with pictures from one of the videos), a huge poster with lyrics and yet another poem, and a download code. The matt-black sleeves for the records are a nice little touch, for reasons I can't quite figure out myself. Also, Banquet had packs of five postcards with the album giving even more details about the five characters.

All in all, easily the album of 2011, and definitely a new entry into my top 50 albums of all time I reckon. I look forward to December 2020 to see where this album appears on my albums of the decade list; I have no idea where I'll be or what I'll be doing, but I hope (and imagine) I'll still think this is a incredible album.


Format: double 12", gatefold, 24"x24" poster, second album cover, 5 postcards
Tracks: 18
Cost: £12.35 new
Bought: Banquet Records
When: 21/06/11
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: download