September 2nd marked the 12th anniversary of the first concert I ever attended, Fucked Up (and others) at the Plaza Condesa in Mexico City. I spent the afternoon at a birthday get-together of the class above mine failing miserably to talk to my crush, before strolling over to the Plaza for that Friday’s main event, meeting up with my dad (I was a sheltered youth) a good while before the first (of many) opening acts even set foot on stage. As the hours slowly ticked by and each passing opener impressed me less than the one before, I clung to my front-row, left-of-center spot intent on seeing the Toronto sextet up close, fantasizing that at some point Damian Abraham would hold the mic up to my lips and I would belt out their magic words in a confident growl, impressing Abraham and everyone else in attendance. The band finally took the stage —right after an infamous performer called Silverio, who spit and threw beer at us (much to my shock and dismay)— and it had all been worth the wait. The mosh pit started up as soon as the first note hit our ears, and after only one song Abraham removed his shirt and dropped his sweaty self into the pit with us, returning to the stage only after the last note had faded away. I left the show with aching joints and broken glasses, but with the widest grin; I had only been listening to Fucked Up for about a year, but that night sealed the deal: I was a believer. I still am.
By September 2nd, 2012, Fucked Up had released a whole lot of singles and 7″s, quite a few EPs, and, crucially, three albums. Hidden World (2006), The Chemistry of Common Life (2008), and David Comes to Life (2011) are all excellent, massive records, each musically experimental and thematically stimulating in its own right. I conceived them for a long while as the canonical gospels of FU’s discography, so much so that 2014’s Glass Boys, with its shorter songs, simpler compositions and ‘mundane’ themes had me crying ‘blasphemy!’. But I’ve grown up (a lot) since then, even though at times it may not feel like it, and my appreciation and understanding of Glass Boys has grown massively in the last ten years. So much so that, of the studio albums Fucked Up have released since then, it is the ones that touch similar strands of our human existence that I have loved the most.
Released in January of 2023, Fucked Up‘s sixth studio album One Day was built upon the endless potential that a single day might hold. Conceived before One Day was even released, Another Day followed the same compositional and recording process: each was written and recorded on guitar in 24 hours by composer/lyricist Mike Haliechuk, after which each band member was allotted the same timeframe to finish their parts of the project. One Day was one of my favorite records of 2023, and Another Day takes many great cues from it, as well as past Fucked Up records, to craft another intimate portrait of joy, grief, and tenderness.
For those unaware, Fucked Up are a hardcore punk band who have spent their career toying with that genre’s boundaries, poking holes in its fabric and then tearing it open with reckless abandon as they’ve incorporated heavy doses of psychedelia, art rock, and late 00’s/early 10’s indie rock musical aesthetics into their sound. And although the band’s heart and Damian Abraham’s vocals have remained true to punk, it’s been quite a while since they’ve decided on sounding so ferocious and high-octane as they do on album opener “Face”. Driven by a fierce drum beat, the music rises and falls like the waves of a choppy sea, as the guitars or the bass fill the space between the pummeling drums and pull you deeper and deeper in. It’s an infectious song from start to finish, one I find myself incapable of tapping along to, even going as far as leaving my thighs and palms quite sore from how excitedly I imitate Jonah Falco’s drumming.
The song segues into “Stimming”, the album’s lead single, with a jubilant howl by the seven-man strong backing vocals choir, whose presence throughout the record is a new addition to Fucked Up‘s arsenal, and an absolute highlight of Another Day. With lyrics penned by main composer Mike Haliechuk, the song is a gorgeous ode to music as that most precious of outlets for tumultuous feelings of hyperactivity and overstimulation that has saved countless lives from self-destruction. Haliechuk is a master at invoking the hidden magic of our bodily lives in beautiful ways (“Face” includes the lines ‘I’m the acorn of my body’s tree / Who grew out from ground to carry me‘), and “Stimming” may just be his most shining of achievements in this regard, as body and sound entangle on the physical plane lovingly in the face of a chaotic world.
‘Started a band
To hold sound in my hand
Needed a home for my loud to land
‘Cause my mind plays its tricks
But I’ve got my fix
I wiggle my twitch ’til it sounds like a hit
I’m going so fast
The urge won’t relax
Music to quench and hold all my clicks
I’m clenching my arms
Around a guitar
Make music instead of a hole in the wall’
‘I need to tap tap tap on the glass’ are the words that close out the choruses, and the song’s closing statement goes ‘There’s a drum under every thumb / We can break through the shell of the earth’. I see myself represented so fully in those words, as I tap tap tap a beat so deep into my muscles it becomes memory; I think every music lover does.
The musical euphoria on display so vividly on the album’s opening two tracks courses through all of Another Day in a way in which Fucked Up hadn’t operated before. It’s the band’s second shortest record (surpassed in brevity only by Who Has the Time and a Half, which was written, recorded, mixed, and mastered during a 24-hour livestream the same week Another Day was released) as that ecstatic energy burns right through its fuse, without any time for detours; the route taken is the scenic route anyway. Within that incessant and joyous forward momentum, there is however time for the band to show off some of their catchiest guitar since David Comes to Life, an album where the intertwining guitar melodies are absolutely stellar.
Back then, Fucked Up had a three-pronged attack with former member Ben Cook, but the chemistry between Haliechuk and co-guitarist Josh Sucker is magical. In spite of that musical callback, as well as a few other moments where I feel the band references past works in a subtle and rewarding manner, the album’s sound is unlike anything Fucked Up had attempted before. There’s a fuzzy quality to the music that really complements the songs’ intimacy, as if we were zooming in on the music and seeing that solid lines have unyielding textures when put under the microscope. This difference in sound especially aids Another Day in feeling wholly distinct from One Day.
Back in 2014, my poor reception to Glass Boys was mainly down to my inability to appreciate how narrowing their musical scope was another huge step forward for the band; how making the personal aspect of their music so apparent was a brave and skillful endeavor that pointed to a band that was finding new ways to grow, not recessing creatively. Ten years on from a record that tackles our occasional fragility as we weather the uncertain currents of time, Fucked Up appear more assured than ever as they bridge those temporal gaps, always moving forward even as they look back, be it with pride, awe, or longing.
‘Give me a place by the lake, I will sit
Time take a bite out of me
Bring up the tide like a quilt to the coast
Bleed my memories into the sea
Another day, another chance
Another way to make it last’
Even in their tranquility, the band are hungry; they want “More”, they’ll take more.
