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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
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Chemistry Of Common Life
by Fucked Up
The second full-length album for the Canadian hard-rock band.
| LABEL: |
Matador |
| RELEASE DATE: |
07 October 2008 |
| DISCS: |
1 disc |
| GENRE(S): |
Rock |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
The Onion (A.V. Club)
While it's offset on a few songs by "clean" female vocals, Damian Abraham's glass-gargling roar remains the primary source of Fucked Up's visceral energy. From this point on, it'll be more exciting to see how much farther beyond gut-level the band is willing to go.
90
musicOMH.com
They are like nothing you've ever heard before and everything you one day hoped you would, too strong for the charts and too corrupting for MTV.
90
Prefix Magazine
The Chemistry of Common Life is not a technically proficient album despite its epic leanings. Like most albums primarily consisting of anthems, its impact tapers off slightly on repeated listens. But the sheer power of the album is key.
90
Alternative Press
Fucked Up aren't the easiest band to like, but they're worth the effort. [Nov 2008, p.156]
90
Slant Magazine
Chemistry is a natural and seamless masterpiece that might never have happened but for the band's own need to thumb its nose at expectations.
88
Pitchfork
It might seem counterintuitive to call Chemistry a grower: From the first listen, it's both pummeling and riveting.
80
Blender
Here, they combine hardcore punk’s combat-boot side with its tortured-noise side, layering what sounds like scores of tsunami-distortion guitars over an atomic-speed drum blitz to attain rarely witnessed levels of obliteration (think Black Flag reincarnated as psychotic yetis).
80
The New York Times
So this album--its best, and indicative of a band that can keep climbing--contains two great punk songs: 'Days of Last,' with an echoed guitar line, and 'Crooked Head,' based on a 12-beat drum rhythm.
80
Tiny Mix Tapes
This is music at its most carnal.
80
Under The Radar
Using near progressive structures as placeholders for hardcore songs, Fucked Up has no equal in the punk scene. An astounding album. [Fall 2008, p.86]
80
New Musical Express
The Chemistry Of Common Life finally proves that rather than being a messy gimmick, Fucked Up are a startlingly talented punk rock band.
80
No Ripcord
Whatever shortcomings The Chemistry Of Common Life present, and there are very few, Fucked Up cancels them out with some imagination and a refusal to so easily fit into the Mallternative crowd.
80
Q Magazine
With shards of melody poking through the noise, the overall effect is often stunning. [Nov 2008, p.117]
80
PopMatters
The Chemistry of Common Life is made by an expansive search party of scalpels, each handled with surgical precision. And together, they make a pretty deep cut.
80
Spin
Abraham's broken-glass belloiw is often matched with folk-siren backup vocals that disorient more than they soothe. Multi-tracks thicken and slur the guitar riffs, heightening both the tension and complexity. [Nov 2008, p.102]
80
All Music Guide
The Chemistry of Common Life, is a lush, expansive masterpiece that dismisses the theory that punkers have to follow a concrete formula of short and fast songs with raw-edged production.
80
Mojo
The music is sneakily sophisticated, buoyed on a mesh of relentless guitar tracks and driven by motorik drums toward a golden pyschpunk horizon. [Nov 2008, p.106]
80
Uncut
The sextet's second effort is both an expression of their anarcho-punk fury and a declarartion of straight-edge commitment, but it's also a radical redrawing of hardcore's boundaries, that reanimates the genre with an aggressively intelligent jolt. [Nov 2008, p.96]
80
NOW Magazine
There’s a reason why this Toronto band is capturing the imagination of critics and fans all over the world: they’ve reinvigorated the form and stretched its limits in genuinely novel ways, and for the most part their experiments actually hit their mark.
70
Dot Music
Whether forsaken or not, Fucked Up certainly do a fine job of making the political sound personal--a victory in itself when taken with a sonic ferocity so broad in its range and wide in scope.
70
cokemachineglow
There’s some talent behind these songs; there isn’t a single instrumental dud on The Chemistry of Common Life. But while the instrumentals leave room for some kind of epic lyrics from the right lyricist and singer, Abraham is neither of those things.
60
Dusted Magazine
Chemistry may represent an attempt to marshal these influences into a massive, unified sound. Alternately, it could be the sound of Fucked Up fucking around with a big budget in a studio and seeing who might be duped into believing it genuine. Indeed, who will listen to this record?
40
Sputnikmusic
In the end, Fucked Up aren't nearly as good as Refused were thought to be, but hey, Refused aren't even as good as they were supposed to be, so Fucked Up may yet be remembered as revolutionary.
The average user rating for this album is 8.7 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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