The Chemistry of Common Life
If you picked up October’s issue of EXCLAIM! magazine, you may have turned inside to read the cover story on Toronto’s Fucked Up. If you did, you would have seen a close-up photo of the band’s lead vocalist, a behemoth of a man who goes by the stage name of Pink Eyes, shirtless with shards of blood-stained glass protruding from his forehead. So why then does this image perhaps comes closest to capturing the true essence of the band – in all their brutality and brilliance – that has catapulted them to status as Canadian hardcore saviours? One only needs to listen to the band’s sophomore album The Chemistry of Common Life, to begin to understand the sometimes confusing but always provocative modus operandi of Fucked Up.
If you were to go by their stage identities alone – there is of course Pink Eyes (whose real name is Damian Abraham) but the rest of the band includes 10,000 Marbles (Mike Haliechuk), Gulag (Josh Zucker), Young Governor (Ben Cook) and Mustard Gas (Sandy Miranda) – you might think the band is a circus of musical miscreants playing loud, dumb punk music that is easily consumable for the masses. You’d be wrong. Over the past few years, Fucked Up has released an ambitious series of 7″ and 12″ records that have tackled such weighty topics as prostitution, religion and politics. Their debut LP Hidden World was finally released in 2006 – a 72 minute opus of metaphysical observations, choruses calculated to offend (such as “We’ll smash your house, we’ll smash your car” in “Baiting The Public”) and average song lengths over five minutes. The band also grew a reputation for their insane live shows, as MTV has discovered on several occasions.
Fucked Up has always operated like a collective of musicians rather than an actual band – you never know who might appear on their albums or limited edition vinyl releases. Hidden World featured Final Fantasy’s Owen Pallett on violin, and those paying attention to this album may hear some familiar voices singing back-up vocals on several tracks. This includes the females of the Brooklyn trio Vivian Girls, and two Canucks, Sebastien Grainger and Dallas Green (whose haunting voice is perfectly juxtaposed with Pink Eyes’ gruffness in “Black Albino Bones”).
The Chemistry of Common Life eschews the traditional loud-soft-loud dynamics of the majority of hardcore these days, by experimenting with a variety of different instruments and styles of music. The album opener“Son The Father” leads in with a flute solo before Pink Eyes’ frenetic vocals come crashing in. The rest of the album contrasts between lush, string-drenched instrumentals such as “Looking for God”, which have moments of true beauty, and chaotic guitar and lyrical tunes such as “Days of Last”. The religious symbolism is still there; the band makes references to Jerusalem and judgement, but isn’t trying to preach a message and seem more interested in creation in the scientific sense. In the standout title track, Pink Eyes sings about birth in relation to the elements – ice, fire, sky and earth – in a testament to Fucked Up’s ability to challenge themselves and listeners alike with their lyrics.
Oh, and that EXCLAIM! article? In the response on the band’s blog, they had the following to say: “Most of this story is BS by the way.” More proof that Fucked Up is truly a band that plays by their own rules.
