MARCH IS KINDA F*CKED UP

While all of you are pleasuring yourself to the sounds of the new album from Mastodon (a.k.a this generation’s Yes), I’m being the contrarian and spending some quality time with fresh tunes from Fucked Up. Indeed, the Canadian post-hardcore artistes are making the most out of this month, with two vinyl releases now available. The first is the 7″ single for No Epiphany, a stellar track off of The Chemistry of Common Life, one of my favorite albums of 2008. The B-side is a remix by noise popsters No Age, a band whose appeal I still can’t grasp. The more exciting release is the Year Of The Rat 12″, the latest installment in Fucked Up’s series based on Chinese astrology, released on the What’s Your Rupture label. The main event is the eleven minute title track, a raucous slab of punk fury elongated in a surprisingly natural way. On the flip is the killer “First Born”, a song that easily could have come from the same sessions as last year’s aforementioned album. If you can tear yourself away from Crack This Guy for 20 minutes, I’d recommend giving Fucked Up a try.

-GS

[Gary Suarez is not paying his hard-earned money for a proggy concept album about a paralyzed boy whose soul ascends into space, encounters Russian Orthodox mystics and subsequently enters the body of Rasputin. He also writes for Brainwashed and usually manages the consistently off-topic No Yoko No. Say, why don’t you follow him on Twitter?]