Fucked Up

While Canadian punk provocateurs Fucked Up play aggressive and incendiary music, that’s hardly where their desire to stir up trouble begins and ends. The group stray far from the standard template of four-four punk stomp, incorporating extended instrumental workouts, unusual arrangements, and lengthy experimental passages along with the furious guitars and ranting vocals, while showing no reluctance to embrace other genres and influences along the way. 

Fucked Up have paid homage on record to pioneering anarchist movements and creative and political troublemakers of all stripes, incorporating startling historical photos in their artwork, embracing elements of obscure mysticism, and incorporating complex narrative lines to challenge and confront their audiences. And despite their fondness for lengthy musical statements, Fucked Up waited until four years into their recording career to record a full-length album. 

They were already heroes in the punk underground when they enjoyed a critical breakthrough with 2008’s The Chemistry of Common Life, which received one of Canada’s most prestigious musical honors, the Polaris Music Prize. 2011’s David Comes to Life was an ambitious concept album that added an extended storyline to their growing musical palette. (The group even released a handful of singles designed to expand of the album’s narrative, which were collected on 2022’s Do All Words Can Do.) And with 2018’s Dose Your Dreams and 2021’s Year of the Horse, Fucked Up dove deeper into unchartered musical territory, adding strong elements of electronics, dance music, folk, and classical to their already heady musical mixture.