For a period of time, Myspace rebranded its social media presence as a music-oriented content site. I both wrote and contributed to a number of pieces published there, all now scrubbed from online existence. In their absence, I share selections of some of that work, albeit sometimes in submitted draft versions, sometimes with draft titles, as opposed to edited form.
This piece was originally published at Myspace in June 2014 and later expunged from their site. If you are the copyright holder and wish to have the piece removed from this page, please contact the site owner.
People really seemed to like David Comes To Life. A dense construct of doomed relationships and fourth-wall shattering existential narratives, Fucked Up’s last full-length was nonetheless best appreciated by ignoring the metatextual metastasis. It was thematically and lyrically complex yet still musically cool enough to enjoy on a more superficial level, frontman Damian “Pink Eyes” Abraham’s one-note bark blending in with the band’s bright shining punk rock. That record’s hardcore forefather, Husker Du’s 1984 double-album Zen Arcade boasted a big picture story as well, yet one didn’t need to follow along in order to bop, pogo, and shove to “Indecision Time” or “Something I Learned Today.”
Green Day be damned, the last edition of the rock n roll handbook strongly advises that a concept album, particularly one oversized or otherwise wide of scope, ought to be followed by something describable by fans, critics, and sycophants as back-to-basics, stripped down, and return to form. Though the rules were looser back in the 70s, The Who still spaced out their duo of sprawling rock operas (Tommy, Quadrophenia) with the lean Who’s Next, and Aladdin Sane succeeded David Bowie’s theatrically robust The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Subsequently, unless you had the misfortune of being in a progressive outfit or a former member of Pink Floyd, it’s been in bands’’ best interest to limit themselves on this front.
Despite David Comes To Life’s relative brevity compared to those burly records, Fucked Up seem to understand that attempting to rekindle that narrative scope on Glass Boys, their latest and less ambitious full-length for mega-indie Matador Records, would be likely perceived as overly indulgent or worse, a lesser effort. They took enough of a calculated risk releasing that sort of album in the first place, especially after 2008’s The Chemistry Of Common Lifeearned the Toronto punks critical acclaim, an expanded fanbase, and the coveted Polaris Music Prize.
Both of those previous records upheld hardcore’s weirdo roots, those that arguably started with gender bending protopunks New York Dolls and found momentum in the sneering wit of Dead Kennedys and the Austinites in Big Boys and The Dicks. Thanks to decades of caricature and self-debasement, contemporary punk bands tend to gravitate towards a subgenre faction and embed themselves in it, emboldening these sonic ghettos that stifle creative thought and encourage safe templates. Fortunately, the success of outliers and unintentional revivalists like Ceremony and Pissed Jeans has resulted in some much needed breathing room for talented punk musicians eager to push things forward in a scene far too comfortable looking backwards.
Glass Boys is neither small nor regressive. Having made the leap from insular hardcore scenesters to angular indie headliners, the trajectory of Fucked Up’s career dissuades them from such myopic restraint and accordingly this new record curtails the storytelling without sacrificing their layered sound. Instead of telling fictions, Glass Boys unburdens the band of the weighty facts. They’re getting older in a genre that revolves around a youth culture, one where maturity poses more than a hypothetical threat. On opener "Echo Boomer," coming to grips with the dread of aging out of hardcore sets the record in motion. Measured to the point of caution, resisting the temptation to just explode after an obvious build-up, Abraham urges, "never let go of what you outgrow." According to the peppy “Paper The House,” fame and whatever the hell counts as fortune to a punk rock band apparently causes incredible anxiety. When Abraham shouts, “The way I make my living has driven me insane” you might wish he’d take it all a little less seriously. But to do so would undermine the gravity of his emotions, ones presumably shared by the rest of Fucked Up, about being an adult.
Though mostly grounded and even humble, there’s still a waft of pretension that comes and goes. Musically more in common with "Baba O'Reilly" than "Celebrated Summer," "The Art Of Patrons" name checks Gaius Julius Eurycles for reasons that’ll probably make more sense to a classics post-grad than the rest of the punks. “Warm Change” might be the most needlessly poetic lament about selling out ever. We probably could’ve done without quoting Lady Macbeth on “The Great Divide” too.
Despite its occasional histrionics, Glass Boys takes fewer liberties than David Comes To Life or just about anything in the band’s last six years of operations. The protracted experimental A-sides of their annual Chinese New Year themed twelve-inch series let them scratch their epic itches, and accordingly most of Glass Boys' tracks hover around the four minute mark and only the closer tops six. Fucked Up still find ways to tinker with their sound, Jonah Falco’s deliberate half-time drum parts--oddly misrepresented in the lead-up to release as a sort of marketing gimmick--being the most apparent example. Coming off the high of a well-received rock opera, the band seem to be managing expectations well while coping with those nasty who am I now? sorts of concerns that keep uncomfortably comfortable people up at night.