From members of HE WHOSE OX IS GORED, FUCKED AND BOUND have violently emerged as card-carrying hardcore polemicists. 20 or so minutes, 13 tracks, lyrical content that ranges from hash tag invectives to wage slavery dirges to Cobain homages (“I’m a negative creep and I’m stoned”), and a palpable sense of the anger one feels when realizing how utterly hopeless and fucking furious about it they really are all come together alchemically to form the band’s first LP Suffrage. Before the release of this record, the band has already garnered attention in their hometown Seattle and the Pacific Northwest due to their furious live shows that recall a day when hardcore was dangerous, unpredictable and often uplifting.
Uly Curry
The first track, “Wild Thing,” draws the listener in with a Flesh Parade-style slam beat meant to incite the nastiest circle pit and catchy, well-phrased, screeching vocals. The song is short, coming in at only 0:33 seconds, clearly setting the pace for the rest of the record. The second track, “Get Inside,” expands upon the hinted-upon sound significantly while showcasing the group’s emotive elements and Lisa Mungo’s vocals. From then on, the album flows naturally and the 20 minutes blow by in a blur of liquified flesh, ground up bones and incendiary angst. Vocally, Mungo is capable of evoking nuances in emotion that are integral in keeping hardcore relevant in 2018. Rather than the plaintive 4/4 barks of every balding, late 30-something white boy full of unrecognized angst, Mungo channels something far more real in her anguished and genuine throat-shredding. When you’ve listened to this kind of shit for 20 plus years, you can pick out the singers yelling for a reason and those that aren’t. Mungo is yelling for a reason.
The lyrical content explores personal impressions of love and ownership, nihilism, ennui and complicity in institutionalized prejudice. Mungo expertly delivers these lines without embellishment. As the album proceeds, the songwriting develops in varied ways, showcasing d-beat worship akin to Disfear and Tragedy, while venturing into Totalitar and Capitalist Casualties, fast-paced, atonal influence on tracks like “Punishers on Deck” and “Zero Fuxx,” but always staying TRVE to the hardcore formula and ethos.
On a whole, the record is absolutely relentless and much more complex than observable upon first listen. Sprinkled into songs like “Parasite Lost” and “Dead Bop” are post-hardcore leanings akin t Botch and Turmoil with slight angular moments a la Sweep the leg Johnny! or Arab on Radar. The closing track is a culmination of the album’s breakneck speed, heady lyrical content and a confrontation with the decision that every nihilist must make: if everything is meaningless, then do we perceive that as wholly good and liberating or as crushing starkness imbued with and colored by wholesale futility? The song drags along as satisfyingly as a bleeding slug across dry salt flats.
The Rudimentary Peni lurch of the closing track, “Abuse of Registry,” indicates that this band has more to say/write in the coming years and does not intend upon staying silent. Mungo further develops her style in this song, adding a crusty tinge that not only recalls Filth in their heyday, but also the singular vocal styling of Seattle’s own Skarp. The versatility found on this record is unlike most hardcore punk records in 2018. Rather than sticking to one style and becoming a genre band in an era where genre bands are succeeding at high levels, FUCKED AND BOUND take stylistic chances within the d-beat and punk universe without sounding the least bit contrived.
The overall aesthetic of the band is polemic, divisive, visceral and unapologetic. 2018 is begging for more bands like this. Remember when every asshat you knew said that fascist political atmospheres breed the best punk bands?
Well, fuck that, cuz it’s escapist bullshit.
But, for real,
FUCKED AND BOUND…
Fucked and Bound – Suffrage will be released February 16th, 2018 on Atomic Action Records.
Tracked and mixed by Robert Cheek at Electric Wall Studios and ExEx Audio. Mastered by Blake Bickel at Dynamic Sound Services. Design by Brian McClelland.
In the meantime, stream the record at the link below and check them out in a town nearest you in the Spring – tour dates below:
FUCKED AND BOUND — ON TOUR
3/17 Seattle, WA @ Black Lodge
3/20 Portland, OR @ Fixin’ To Bar
3/21 Chico, CA @ Naked Lounge
3/22 Sacramento, CA @ Blue Lagoon
3/23 Oakland, CA @ Golden Bull
3/24 Los Angeles, CA @ 3PM MATINEE at Redwood Bar
3/25 San Diego, CA @ Space Bar
3/27 Mesa, Az @ Nile Underground
3/28 Tucson, AZ @ Flycatcher
3/29 Las Vegas, NV @ The Garth
3/30 Reno, NV @ Jub Jub’s Days of the Loud Fest
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