5. Fucked Up - ‘David Comes To Life’

We settle in but it’s time to go,
Taken to sea by the undertow.
Love the smell but I hate the taste.
Feeling good is such a waste.
I can’t remember where I heard it or where I read it (or maybe I just came up with it because I’m just that clever), but my favourite assessment of Fucked Up is that they are the only hardcore band in existence that can pull off writing a five-minute song, let alone a song that barely transcends a minute.
But that is the staple for this band. Their attention to detail is profound, and always pays off. It is, in essence, what separates them from the traditional perception of hardcore punk music. Their songs are thick with layers, offering something new with each subsequent listen.
Fucked Up’s longevity will ultimately be decided by their willingness to compulsively recreate this process with each record. Fortunately, David Comes To Life offers few signs of fleeting ambition. While the previous record, The Chemistry Of Common Life, imprinted Fucked Up as an elaborate and artistic punk act, David Comes To Life proclaims a revolutionary attack on genre, addressing the abrasiveness of hardcore with metafiction.
Let me explain:
David Comes To Life is a concept album, a writing practise I tend to reserve for progressive bands that want document drug trips (I’m looking at you Oscar Rodriguez-Lopez) or for the down-home folk types that want to profess the depth of blue collar America (is that too specific of a reference? Who cares, Nebraska is incredible). I find punk efforts to be vain and redundant because the subversive implications of the genre scream “ANARCHY! YOUTH! YOUTHFUL ANARCHY! (love!) ANARCHIST LOVE! (thats what American Idiot was about, right?). Ironically, the predictability of punk concept albums diminishes the subversiveness. Titus Andronichus re-envigored this sentiment with The Monitor, appropriating civil war imagery with elements of ragtime into a punk rock landscape. Similarly, Fucked Up dove into the monotonous world of modernist small-town UK to construct a vast, rich meta-narrative about love, God, faith, and destiny.
But to be frank (and totally humourless), it is way more fucked up than that.
As much as I’d love to relay my interpretation of the narrative (just kidding. that would take FOR-EV-AH. Wikipedia has a wonderful little plot synopsis. Or you could just read the lyrics), I’m more interested in the marriage that is made between the lyrics and the music. Pink Eyes’ writing is in top forum throughout the record, but the supporting accompaniment mixed with his trademark growl carry meaning on their own.
Take “Queen Of Hearts” for example. Pink Eyes proclaims, from his soap box of walled distortion and crash hits:
“Hello, my name is David.
You are Veronica.
Let’s be together.
Let’s fall in love”
This is one of the rare time’s where the image of a large, sweaty (probably even bleeding), half-naked, punk emphatically spitting deep-throated exclamations will warm my heart. This tendency is prominent throughout the record, as it’s clear that Fucked Up take a certain pride in conveying this narrative as a fluent musical. The musical tone, especially in definitive tracks like “Under My Nose” and “One More Night”, plays as vital a role as the actual words. This expectation of the listener justifies the long play time.
As ridiculous as this sounds, but David Comes To Life is a great album because it demands the attention of the listener. For the casual listener, it’s way too long. Sure, on a song by song basis, the songs stand on their own, but rarely does an album improve so drastically when you are required to pay attention. It’s like listening to a really crazy, post-modern, short story on tape. With a punk rock soundtrack.
Yeah. Like that.
Listen to: “Queen of Hearts”



