Fucked Up's Glass Boys is a blazing, titanic, triumphant punk rock album, the product of a band reckoning with the success of its last two sweeping, defining, monolithic records. On 2008's The Chemistry Of Common Life, they tested hardcore's capacity for stylistic innovation, winning the Polaris Music Prize in the process. With 2011's David Comes To Life Fucked Up offered up a full blown rock opera, coming with one larger-than-life hook after another. Glass Boys isn't a back-to-basics move. For all its ambition and complexity, Glass Boys is a tight, concise, and direct album, of real sentiment rather than artifice. Fucked Up have made another mind-expanding, life-affirming piece of work, this time shooting straight from the heart.
Drummer Jonah Falco does something innovative on Glass Boys, adding two separate drum tracks, one of them in half-time, creating a psychedelic, disorienting feel. A limited vinyl edition of the album available through
GalleryAC and indie retailers will include a bonus version that only features Falco's half-time drums.