The thing about Fucked Up is that on their proper albums, their music has never been all that fucked up. At this point, the Toronto band is basically a heavy guitar pop group fronted by the unmistakable hardcore bark of Damian "Pink Eyes" Abraham. They're hardcore in spirit and attitude and Wikipedia entry only: 2014's Glass Boys was more digital-age the Who than Minor Threat (and the same goes for 2011’s hour-plus rock opera David Comes to Life, really).
As far as living up to their name, it's in their ongoing Zodiac series where they let the freak flag fly. Since 2006's Year of the Dog, they've released an EP (sometimes only "EP" in name) once every 12 months or so featuring music inspired by different years of the Chinese calendar. These songs are often long and more experimental. The seventh in the series*, Year of the Hare*, includes a 21-minute title track that was written and recorded in 2013 and a eight-minute B-side recorded in 2014. The cover art was designed by Converge frontman Jake Bannon, who's released Year of the Hare on his Deathwish imprint, but this music isn't especially heavy.
Instead, it sounds like the kind of outsider psychedelia that may have popped up on a weirdo imprint like Siltbreeze at some point in the '90s alongside the Strapping Fieldhands, the Dead C, and Harry Pussy. The B-side, "California Cold", actually made me think of psyched-out noise-freaks Temple of Bon Matin and Comets on Fire for the first time in awhile. The vocals are hazy and occasionally buried, the guitars reminiscent of a blown-out "Free Bird". There are shakers, saxophone, and flute. It's a lusciously murky offering, one that works as an anthem before folding in on itself and breaking apart in interesting ways, and overall is the stronger of the songs here.
The title track finds them experimenting with the process of recording itself. "Year of the Hare" starts in silence for two minutes before an acoustic guitar strums and the song slowly picks up pace. But throughout these 21 minutes, tape is spliced and edits are intentionally obvious: you get the sound of a cable unplugging (and the connection being reestablished), an empty studio layered over and over, a plaintive piano starting and stopping and warping, music skidding out into a dead-end and then negotiating a new climax. "Year of the Hare" feels, at times, very much like their version of a modern-classical experiment: John Cage collaborating with Youth of Today. It's not until about the six-minute mark when they allow themselves to go full bore into the song, and here it becomes an enjoyable Fucked Up anthem. Though, after repeat listens, it remains unclear if you really needed to go through the rest to experience that rush.
Abraham and guest vocalist Isla Craig sing—at different times, it's more like Act I and Act II than a duet—about various rabbits, from the popular culture of Alice of Wonderland ("There's only one way to stop a mad watch") to the kind you find in your backyard. There are "hare/hair/heir" puns and references to endless fucking and endless proliferating. These lyrics were written by guitarist and producer Mike Haliechuk, who has said that the song "focuses on time, and becoming lost in it. The modern way of life, getting stuck in time-sucking gadgets and trends, stress and scheduling."
The song itself is circular, finishing how it began; it feels very much like an endless loop, Abraham howling somewhere in the middle: "Mad as a march hare, two days late/ They stole all my time and ate all my space/ A thousand rabbits with a million heirs/ It's always tea time in the year of the hare." The track was accompanied by an unsolvable interactive video that features an office worker being haunted by rabbits on the subway, in his office, and at home. I couldn't get the video to work properly, so just kept refreshing my browser, until I started to wonder if that's actually what they wanted me to do.
All of this is admirable enough, even if, at this point, the commentary is a bit obvious. But hey, Fucked Up have continued to stretch and find new ways to carry on, and for a hardcore group that formed in 2001, this is worthy of respect. Doubling down on all of this, the band is about to go out on a Zodiac-themed tour, performing Zodiac songs (some never before performed live) as a nine-piece featuring all the members of the group, Doomsquad.
You have to wonder, though, if it isn't time to scale back a little, and to find complexities in a more compact approach. You can add layers and length endlessly, but that often dilutes (Chinese Democracy vs. Appetite for Destruction, if you will). Sometimes a power trio is more than enough. Because while "Year of the Hare" offers nice sounds and concepts, it essentially works best as background music. All said, I'm not sure if background music's what I want from a band who, on more than one occasion, literally caused the hair on my neck to stand up.
