Fucked Up: 'One day' — Yuck Magazine

Jan 26

Jan 26 Fucked Up: 'One day'

The circumstances behind Fucked Up’s new release, ‘One Day’, are remarkable. More remarkable is the fact that these circumstances didn’t bring about an album that sounds rushed, generic, or downright bad. Let me tell you: as a response to their reputation of making things on a large scale – from enormous concept albums to 12-hour-long shows and endless releases of singles – Fucked Up resolved to write ‘One Day’ in, well… One Day.

Twenty-four hours of studio time was all they needed to write and record this album. Now, that’s real experimentation, the kind of experimentation you wouldn’t normally associate with a hardcore band.

Hardcore is, to my mind at least, a genre often tightly bound by its conventions, and resistant to change. ‘One Day’ is a good negotiation. The album’s time restraint is used in the same way Harry Houdini might use a straight jacket; part of the amazement is that the band have pulled it off, which allows for a secondary sense of amazement, that they haven’t lost their dignity in doing it. The straight jacket hasn’t gotten wrapped around their head, it hasn’t even messed their hair.

The standout cut has got to be the album’s second track, ‘I Think I Might Be Weird’ which somehow — don’t ask me how — contains traces of Vampire Weekend and Steve Lacy which place Fucked Up in a curious relationship with their genre. This isn’t any hardcore band. The tracks contain traces of the ‘70s, grunge, and emo-punk. An electronic piano underlying ‘Nothing’s Immortal’ contrasts strangely with gritty vocals singing an almost nursery rhyme melody to evoke a sort of sad nostalgia. It’s unexpected and demonstrates emotional nuance not often associated with hardcore bands like Fucked Up.

‘Falling Right Under’ and ‘Roar’ come next; they are powerful, driving tracks with more tuneful melodies than most hardcore music, with thoughtful lyrics, and masterful musicianship.

At its core, ‘One Day’ is a bold experiment by a band whose confidence in their sound assured the album's success before they even stepped into the studio. It takes a band who knows each other completely, and who understands their genre, and their listener, to pull off a feat like this.