A sharp focus prevails on Fucked Up’s new album.
Of all the egregiously false constructs humans are forced to suffer, one of the most damaging is the idea of time.
Now that it doesn’t matter to most of us when to gather the harvest in, basing the success or failure of our lives like drones on task completion seems as pointless as it is unfulfilling.
Canadians Fucked Up have long passed into the realm of national treasure, their albums leaving them award-rich and critically decorated.
A punk band in its absolutely broadest sense, they’ve stretched its notional boundaries to the limit over concept albums like 2011’s David Comes To Life and, most recently, Year Of The Horse, a sprawling project which was initially released in installments and where the finished product ran for over 90 minutes.
Let’s go back though. In 2019 guitarist Mike Haliechuk had the idea of recording an entire album in 24 hours, laying down 10 songs in three 8-hour sessions.
Things got in the way shortly after that, but Haliechuk’s subsequent ask of his fellow band members was to commit to a similar creative process despite the snag that everybody was contributing remotely.
Galvanised, singer Damian Abraham started contributing lyrics for the first time since 2014’s Glass Boys, motivated by a pandemic mindset we would never have considered:
‘It almost felt like it might be the last time I’d ever get to record vocals for anything. What do I want to say to friends who aren’t here anymore? What do I want to say to myself?’
The good news is that the plethora of things that could’ve gone wrong – spoilt or unfinished concepts, disconnected music, purely gestural tunes – are all absent from One Day.
Whilst using words like ‘focused’ always seems incongruous about Fucked Up, 10 songs in 40 minutes has allowed them enough time for a stretching of their sinuous power, without the opportunity for the energy to ebb away.
Abraham is in his abrasive element throughout vocally, giving opener Found (in fact, everything he touches) an epic, vital feel which fully committed artists always honor their audience with.
All that emotion has to have an outlet, and fingers are pointed and blame is laid. On the raucous Broken Little Boys the designers of the world as we have come to know it – tech gods, real gods, political thugs – are speared.
Closer to home, the arty-hardcore scree of Lords Of Kensington deals with the gentrification of Fucked Up’s own neighborhood, one in which they themselves admit they have played a part.
As much as that gives the impression of an album in thrall to the punk status quo, One Day is also tooled with against the grain moments: I Think I Might Be Weird finds Abraham recounting a dream sequence lived out on a boat, its new wave vibes pointing to Cheap Trick, whilst the power pop of Falling Right Under speaks to regret and missed chances.
The highlight though is Cicada, on which Haliechuk takes over on lead vocals. Dedicated to preserving the legacy of passed away friends, his softer way helps it to face a responsibility most of us don’t have the tools to deal with, whilst musically it rings as one of the finest tracks Husker Du never wrote.
Promises, regret, love, happiness, loss – these are all things that really matter, unlike when you have to do something for someone else who won’t appreciate it.
One Day finds Fucked Up liberated by compression, but breaking its chains gloriously in the end.
