Review: Fucked Up – Year of the Dragon

Grandiosity, punk’s vilest anathema, has practically been Fucked Up’s lifeblood, separating them from their contemps and facilitating one viable single after another. Year of the Dragon marks the sixth in their 12-single Zodiac series, and their most ambitious music since 2006’s Hidden World. Fully utilizing their layered quasi-psych guitar assemblage, and letting it seethe, sputter and even twin-lead solo around Damien Abraham’s brash growling for 18 minutes might turn more spineless “fans” into web whiners, but those willing to listen will find shades of Thin Lizzy, Rush (!) and even Gustav Holst wriggling within the beastly title track as it decimates everything in tow. The B-sides are fine, chugging, Poison Idea–fueled hardcore, but the title track takes this cake. Those who wrote off David Comes to Life for its dense esotericism won’t come back for this one, but for those of us who never left? It’s exactly what we’ve wanted. –Dylan Chadwick