These two bands/albums don't have much in common except for being European and tragically short lived.
Refused: The Shape of Punk to Come: A Chimerical Bombination in 12 Bursts.
In 1998 Refused entered the studio to make their third and what would end up being their last album. The idea behind it was that punk rock music could not still be anti-establishment without taking an evolutionary leap. The title is a reference to Ornette Coleman's album The Shape of Jazz to Come which took a similar left brain approach to a genre (and a finalist for my choices). By rolling in drum and bass and jazz themed interludes with their own foreboding and bombastic brand of hardcore The Shape of Punk to Come took a genre to dizzying new heights that the band was ultimately incapable of living up to. If I may quote Pitchfork's review of the album I think the final paragraph of it does a much better job describing the album than I ever could.
Worms of the Senses/Faculties of the Skull
Liberation Frequency
The Deadly Rhythm
Summerholiday vs. Punkroutine
"Bruitist Pome #5"
New Noise
The Refused Party Program
Protest Song '68
Refused Are Fucking Dead
The Shape of Punk to Come
Tannhäuser / Derivè
The Apollo Program Was a Hoax
The Sound: From the Lions Mouth
The Sound were a post-punk band during the 1980's similar to Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnyman. Unlike those two bands though they just seemed snake bitten by poor management and have sadly become forgotten about in the time since they broke up. From the Lions Mouth was their second album and they made excellent use of a little more money in the production budget and well known producer Hugh Jones. The album has the atmosphere of a [B]Joy Division[/B record built around very tight, catchy tunes, but success on a commercial level just never followed. They never found a record deal in the US and while they were big in some European countries it just never grew beyond being a cult act. It's a shame because listening to them it's kind of confusing how certain bands with a similar sound could thrive while they couldn't.
Winning
Sense of Purpose
Contact the Fact
Skeletons
Judgement
Fatal Flaw
Possession
The Fire
Silent Air
New Dark Age
Hothouse
The single Hothouse wasn't released on the initial album but upon reissue in 2002 was rolled into the end of New Dark Age as kind of a cheat to add it to the album but keep the late lead singer Adrian Boreland's wishes that any reissues be kept with their original track listing intact. But since the copy my friend gave me that got me into them was the reissue it didn't seem complete to me without it.
Refused: The Shape of Punk to Come: A Chimerical Bombination in 12 Bursts.
In 1998 Refused entered the studio to make their third and what would end up being their last album. The idea behind it was that punk rock music could not still be anti-establishment without taking an evolutionary leap. The title is a reference to Ornette Coleman's album The Shape of Jazz to Come which took a similar left brain approach to a genre (and a finalist for my choices). By rolling in drum and bass and jazz themed interludes with their own foreboding and bombastic brand of hardcore The Shape of Punk to Come took a genre to dizzying new heights that the band was ultimately incapable of living up to. If I may quote Pitchfork's review of the album I think the final paragraph of it does a much better job describing the album than I ever could.
Quote:
| The first lyric on the thing is this awkward-as-fuck line: "I got a bone to pick with capitalism, and a few to break." The title of the song "Deadly Rhythm", it turns out, refers to "the production line." But as hammy as those gestures might be, they also reinforce the album's central theme: Complacency is a creeping, crippling disease, one that every structure of society seeks to encourage, and it's something you have to flail against constantly, every day. As simplistic as that concept might be, it's also a potent one, and it led these guys, screaming in their second language, to make an album as brain-obliterating as this one-- even if it spun them to pieces in the process. |
Liberation Frequency
The Deadly Rhythm
Summerholiday vs. Punkroutine
"Bruitist Pome #5"
New Noise
The Refused Party Program
Protest Song '68
Refused Are Fucking Dead
The Shape of Punk to Come
Tannhäuser / Derivè
The Apollo Program Was a Hoax
The Sound: From the Lions Mouth
The Sound were a post-punk band during the 1980's similar to Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnyman. Unlike those two bands though they just seemed snake bitten by poor management and have sadly become forgotten about in the time since they broke up. From the Lions Mouth was their second album and they made excellent use of a little more money in the production budget and well known producer Hugh Jones. The album has the atmosphere of a [B]Joy Division[/B record built around very tight, catchy tunes, but success on a commercial level just never followed. They never found a record deal in the US and while they were big in some European countries it just never grew beyond being a cult act. It's a shame because listening to them it's kind of confusing how certain bands with a similar sound could thrive while they couldn't.
Winning
Sense of Purpose
Contact the Fact
Skeletons
Judgement
Fatal Flaw
Possession
The Fire
Silent Air
New Dark Age
Hothouse
The single Hothouse wasn't released on the initial album but upon reissue in 2002 was rolled into the end of New Dark Age as kind of a cheat to add it to the album but keep the late lead singer Adrian Boreland's wishes that any reissues be kept with their original track listing intact. But since the copy my friend gave me that got me into them was the reissue it didn't seem complete to me without it.
