Fucked Up are a hardcore punk band formed in 2001 in Toronto, and the best hardcore punk band of the 21st Century. They have always been a band prone to extremes—like writing, recording, mixing, and releasing an entire album from scratch in a 24-hour period, and then making it available for 24 hours (which, for that reason, won’t be covered below)—and whose thesis could be “Nothing is more pathetic than too much self-restraint.” Two notable things about the band are: first, frontman Damian Abraham, whose rabid, herniated snarl-bark makes Cujo seem comatose; and second, guitarist/producer/songwriter Mike Haliechuk, whose everything-at-once gluttonous production on FU albums would give Mr. Creosote pause. So let’s rub some stones together until magic comes out while we run down their records.
7. Glass Boys (2014)
Maybe making three impossibly over-top-top records in a row depleted them. Fucked Up’s fourth full-length finds them retreating to make 42 minutes of straight-ahead (melodic) hardcore punk. “Glass” offers some strong material, and Abraham gives his best-ever performance, sounding as if, like Tootles, he’s (finally) lost his goddamn marbles. Still, “Glass” feels and sounds like exhaustion. It’s oddly fitting, given the lyrical throughline is being a punk while getting old(er). Abraham’s impressively succinct writing allows him to express in four words the futility of trying to act younger: “Rapt attention / Turns malaise.” When he snarls “For a second it all made sense, but it fell apart,” it’s as if he’s shouting back time itself. Time doesn’t shatter like glass, but that didn’t stop the band from trying.
Play it again: “The Great Divide”
Skip it: “Warm Change”
6. Another Day (2024)
A sort-of sequel to “One Day” (see #3), FU’s newest album is their most optimistic. Perhaps because it wasn’t made under the severe restrictions as its older brother, “Another” is the more considered work. The production is brighter than “One,” with lead guitar often appearing as gleaming neon streaks. Abraham and Haliechuk again share lyric writing, with the former growing as a lyricist. He even comes close to writing like Abraham: “I’m clenching my arms around a guitar / Make music instead of a hole in the wall.” Abraham, meanwhile, can’t help but be a punk: “I watch in glee as that motherfucker grabs his chest / A tinge of jealousy that he’s the one who leaves this mess.” This is another solid effort, but it proved that FU works best when pushed to the edge.
Play it again: “Tell Yourself You Will”
Skip it: “House Lights”
5. Dose Your Dreams (2018)
FU’s second double-album rock opera is the band’s longest full-length to date, acting as an idea-dump of experiments akin to “Tusk” or “The Beatles.” This is still a punk record at its core, but there’s also heartland rock, trip-hop, dance-rock, shoegaze, industrial, and twee indie rock scattered across 82 minutes. It’s a (fun) mess, in other words. The narrative is equally messy: David from “David” (see #4) tries a mind-altering drug and winds up with a looser grip on reality than QAnon followers. Haliechuk steps in as chief lyricist, and while he’s a fine writer (“I found a path to God inside of this nothing-box / I’d sell my soul for that little wire, and I’ve found a buyer”), here he lacks Abraham’s wit and quotability. “Dose” works best as a sample platter, and you’ll get more mileage if you follow David’s lead.
Play it again: “Raise Your Voice Joyce”
Skip it: “Two I’s Closed”
4. David Comes to Life (2011)
The better double-album rock opera of the two. This is the closest they ever came to channeling The Who, and “David” is indeed their “Tommy.” Of course, this is Fucked Up we’re talking about, the batshit narrative has more misdirection than Apple Maps at launch, and the equally-batshit elevator pitch is (spoilers!): “Love Story” meets “The Truman Show” meets “Groundhog Day.” Even when Abraham is snarl-yelling about the titular character’s love and loss (“He knows that death is part of life / He would’ve made that girl his wife”), he still finds time for bitter humor (“Swans mate for life, or so I’ve heard / Which is fitting, because that shit’s for the birds”). The burning-bright cover art is apt, because they sounded burned out on the follow-up (see #7).
Play it again: “Turn the Season”
Skip it: “Let Her Rest”
3. One Day (2023)
Here, the band’s individual members wrote and recorded their respective parts in 24 hours. The result is a bright blast of spritely hardcore with minimal fat. This is their most fun and inviting record, featuring big hooks and a handful of their strongest melodies to date. Even when the lyrics—split between Abraham and Haliechuk—touch on, say, listlessness (“I used to think there was no way / For us to know which path to take / So I took the one that had me stay in place”), there’s inspiration in the shrugging acceptance of it all: “Each generation gives its traumas to the next / And they carry it.” “One Day” demonstrated that the band can throw together a better album than its peers in that amount of time.
Play it again: “Broken Little Boys”
Skip it: “Falling Right Under”
2. The Chemistry of Common Life (2008)
FU’s second album pulls a magic trick by doubling down on the bombasity of “Hidden World” while chopping off 20 minutes and being a sleeker version of its predecessor. “Chemistry” is, thus, a heavier record than their debut, even with two contemplative passages. Guitar overdubs aplenty envelop furious hardcore punk, making the album denser than a dying star. The lyrical theme is the frustration of religion and spirituality: “The hubris of the fallacy that only God can judge me / Was it only arrogance, or were we simply that naive?” Abraham’s superb writing on the topic is angry without being cynical, and he vomits out the best couplet of 2008: “It’s hard enough being born in the first place / Who would ever want to be born again?” “Chemistry” proved that Fucked Up don’t need the capacity of a CD to make an expansive piece of art.
Play it again: “Magic Word”
Skip it: “Looking for God”
1. Hidden World (2006)
On FU’s debut LP, they stopped being a singles band and became an album band; they died and were born again, to borrow from the record’s lyrics. Here, they declared war—on punk, on their own future, on critics. Or as Abraham puts it: “Cut down all the forest trees / Search the horizon for what is now seen.” There are quick-ish songs driven by a coupl’a chords repeated ad infinitum, sure, but three-quarters of “Hidden” is made up of songs that are five to nine minutes and feature proggy interludes, orchestration, and arena rock leads. The result is 72 minutes of anthemic prog-punk played with Hulk-smash energy and intensity. To call this punk would seem to test the tensile strength of language itself. Then again, nothing’s more punk than breaking all the fuckin’ rules.
Play it again: “Triumph of Life”
Skip it: the final third of “Vivian Girls”