Couple Tracks: Singles 2002-2009

This career-spanning retrospective helps put Fucked Up’s unlikely critical-darling status in perspective, and serves as a handy catch-up tool for those who’ve come to the party late.

For those searching for clues as to where this band came from or where it might go next, Couple Tracks offers up an attractive proposition indeed.

Think of this impressive, 25-song double-CD compilation as Singles Going Screaming -- a testament to a Canadian punk institution.

Granted, Fucked Up’s ambitious full-lengths are always going to snag the most attention. But when it comes to chronicling the group’s heart, recklessness, and rabid devotion to the fine art of the punk anthem, Couple Tracks is the true classic.

The band’s phlegm-clotted bark and crisp four-chord surges remain intact throughout, whilst at the same time appearing more refined and steadily more adventurous.

This wildly varied collection begins with their first release in 2002, "No Pasaran" about the Spanish Civil War, and include treats such as "Dream Come True," a self-released 7" given away at gigs, which sounds like Henry Rollins singing the "Grease "soundtrack while vomiting marbles. Yes, it's that good. [Feb 2010, p.84]

Couple Tracks seizes on these dichotomies and captures Fucked Up in all of its multi-faceted glory.

Despite its nonchronological sequencing and song-cherrypicking, it never really comes together as an album; it's more like "the many moods of Fucked Up," or, rather, their many variations on one mood.

Although this record reeks of Matador Records looking to score capital off Fucked Up, it’s not a bad way to go. Couple Tracks would be great for someone who wants the Fucked Up experience.

While it is by no means required listening, Couple Tracks is certainly worth it for newcomers and short-time fans of an up and coming experimental punk band. And while it never achieves an album feel, it's got enough short blast of quality to make it worth the money.

Granted, 25 songs of fast, furious, gravelly hardcore punk may seem like a lot to take--and some of the raw alternate takes are in best form in their fully evolved multi-tracked versions on the excellent Chemistry of Common Life and Hidden World albums--but even so, most of the songs included on Couple Tracks are absolute necessities.

Damian Abraham's vocals are still the star of the show, but the cleanness of Couple Tracks shows how, with the right kind of engineering, Abraham's behemoth-unleashed singing, rather than alienate non-hardcore kids, ices the cake on an already great band.

Five unreleased LP outtakes and alternate versions make this essential even for Fucked Up completists. [Feb 2010, p. 115]

It's a bold, scattershot declaration that leaves vinyl junkies ready to track down Fucked Up's coinciding (but not included) 7-inch single, "Couple Tracks."