F*cked Up - 'Hidden World' (Jade Tree) Released 09/10/06

****ed Up are a punk band from Canada, but instead of sounding like a poor man’s Green Day that have been rounded up by Mounties as some Canadian acts have, ****ed Up mine a far more progressive and hard turf. Formed in 2001, by members with strange pseudo-names including 10,000 Marbles, Pink Eyes, Mustard Gas aka Slumpy and Concentration Camp we never expected to hear anything remotely similar to the Buzzcocks. No, ‘Hidden World’ resembles more Black Flag filtered through a Husker Du machine, being both punk and ugly yet somehow slightly highbrow at the same time. Or at the very least wannabe highbrow.

****ed Up have being honing their punk art for several years now, yet ‘Hidden World’ is their debut proper, coming on the back of at least twenty different tapes and vinyl releases churned out by themselves or through labels such as Slasher and Deranged Records. ‘Hidden World’ is out through Jade Tree, home of such punk mainstays such as Hot Water music and these days up and coming Americana acts like Micah P Hinson. ****ed Up are a decidedly nastier affair compared to most of their label mates.

Battering lumps out of their instruments and vocal chords, ****ed Up make epics of the standard hardcore format, where once it was over in a minute and a half, it now takes around five minutes, or as on closer ‘Vivian Girls’ drags it out to nearly nine minutes. Drums slither and rattle and guitars twang, playing riffs that would flay flesh whilst over it all, the voice of Pink Eyes seethes like a tub of boiling lard. The rage is directed at all the usual targets from the population at large to anyone else that’s listed in Punk Targets 101.

It all sounds very generic on paper but there are some nice touches on this record, the guitar lines are never too heavy, unlike say Black Flag’s Greg Ginn they don’t sound like Black Sabbath played through a horrible tinny Korean stereo, no ****ed Up’s riffs plough a more melodic territory, reminiscent sometimes of Bob Mould’s crystalline work on ’Zen Arcade’, complete with the odd blues note or surf line as on ’Carried Out To The Sea’.

Compared to a lot of what Gigwise has heard this year, ****ed Up play some interesting music, yet that is perhaps too drawn out with extended notes and ambient moments, when a direct punch to the gut would probably do the trick. But hardcore punk is a sort of one trick act isn’t it, play differently enough and all of a sudden you’re not punk anymore and no one will touch you with a barge pole. ****ed Up are sort of being different but still keeping close enough to the safety zone. We can’t say ****ed Up or ‘Hidden World’ are anything revelatory, at the end of the day the band are following the same old format, just taking a longer winding road to get there.