Fucked Up - Year of the Hare

Punk is about freedom of expression. It’s about corroding the influences of neoliberalism and capitalism, removing the shackles of corporate, major label interference. It has a sound, but it doesn’t have to sound like anything in particular. It’s about taking your own route, smashing the doors down and playing as loud as you want, as fast as you want, “as long as it’s good and it has passion” (Kurt Cobain). So when Fucked Up announced a half-hour long EP consisting of two tracks, that was punk.

‘Year of the Hare’, then, is punk-rock in the extreme. This is a swaggering, expansive, wandering record, which picks apart the construct of song writing. Parts of this record sound like a piano suite. At other times, it’s acoustic guitars riffing off of each other playfully. Even then, when it’s not blasé prog, it’s the typical Fucked Up sound, if there is such a thing - caustic, visceral hardcore bleeding out of every pore.

Counting in at a considerable 21 minutes, the EP’s title track is a bouncing, reckless, unpredictable track, its arms dragged side to side, never settling on any distinct sound, with idiosyncratic production. ‘California Cold’ is more straight-forward, in the most Fucked Up sense. The guitars from ‘David Comes To Life’ come back screaming, punctuated by a psychedelic breakdown, including jazz flutes and discordant feedback that gallops from ear to ear.

This is music in its purest, most experimental form. This is a record which doesn’t make sense, because it doesn’t have to. This is Fucked Up having a shit-ton of fun, and making no apologies whatsoever.