The latest album from Vancouver band Fucked Up delivers a chaotic and complex punk rock sound. Glass Boys is a mix of hardcore punk and indie that is unpolished, but tenacious.
But with this hybridization the album suffers from an overall lack of unity — many songs shift from mellow instrumentals to screaming vocals at a moment’s notice.
Although the band has found commercial success (and won the Polaris Music Prize in ‘09), fast guitars and seething vocals show they haven’t forgotten their roots.
The opening track, “Echo Boomer,” begins with light keys that soon combust with powerful screaming vocals.
“DET” showcases the anarchic nature of the disc as it flirts with radio-friendly instrumentals and mosh-pit inspiring lyrics. “Glass Boys” opens with mellow guitar that slowly becomes distorted and unsettling. When the vocals and drums come in, the song sounds like any other on the disc — hasty and disorderly.
Glass Boys blends soft instrumentals with hardcore vocals to create a pseudo-psychedelic sound, but with some songs lasting upwards of six minutes it can be exhausting to listen to in one sitting.
Fucked Up produces solid punk rock, but listen to this album in sections, otherwise the music can become tiresome.