David Comes To Life

The 18 songs on the album are all in the heavily layered, chamber-hardcore style established on Chemistry of Common Life, but Fucked Up is taking the idea to the furthest reaches, and somehow pulling it off.

Fucked Up's pop sensibilities remain impressively omnipresent, validating the hype. [Jul 2011, p.107]

One brilliant rock song follows another, defiantly leaden in construction but stalwart in performance. Rarely does such simple rock sound so satisfying.

Fucked Up actively refuse any sort of definition, and David Comes To Life proves that they're more than capable of shouldering that burden.

In "Turn the Season," "Ship of Fools" and "Life in Paper," the guitars suggest a torrent busting through a dam, sweeping away all in its path. It's an exhilarating, engulfing sound that might've been better served by a more concise album. But then F Up never has been much for holding itself back.

There's no doubting the commitment in delivery though, with solid musical cohesion and a thrusting triple-guitar assault that has an astounding clarity and is expertly choreographed.

To hear the band members tell it, David Comes To Life is the record they've been working up to for the past 10 years, a grandiose statement that closes off the first chapter of Fucked Up's history. It's anybody's guess as to how they'll follow something like this, but we're already excited for chapter two.

The narrative of David is not quite as cohesive as Fucked Up think it is, the lyrics too cliché, but if writing a rock opera was the impetus required to push them to produce an album as gloriously overblown as David Comes to Life, then it's worth a thousand dead Veronicas and even more mopey dorks to mourn them.

The missteps of narrative are easily paved over by the energy, power, and fun of the music. As such, rather than feeling constrained or overwrought, this is a concept album where you can forget the concept for a while and just dive right in.

The eighteen tracks and eighty minutes presented here don't hold a candle to 2008′s The Chemistry of Common Life but I truly admire the tenacity of this outfit to push on toward such a lofty venture.

Musically speaking, it's a perfectly logical progression from Fucked Up's second album, 2008's The Chemistry Of Common Life, which itself strode recognisably onwards from their 2006 studio debut Hidden World.

David ain't the kind of thing you want to hear every day, but it's the kind of thing someone is going to play every day for a month. Or months. Whatever it takes to come back to life.

Guitars buzz and chime, melodies uproot from the dirt and stand tall; the sum total being tan indefinable yet fascinating modern day rock opera that is as rewarding as it is unique. [4 Jun 2011, p.52]

Toronto punk sextet's third LP is an epic soundtrack. [July 2011, p. 104]

Without a doubt, the hooky riffs and unforgiving pace make it a fantastic rock album in itself, but only Fucked Up would chose to play out a tragedy to this soundtrack.

Behold their evolution: while 2008's 'The Chemistry Of Common Life' album was drenched in religious connotations and spiritual euphemisms, this time, their rock opera about romance and death at an English lightbulb factory (seriously) is theatrics personified, taking listeners on a quest while still abiding by their precious DIY ethic.

Fucked Up's grand ambition may one day be their downfall, but right now it has produced an intricate, rewarding beast of an album, their magnum opus.

Sonically, this is Fucked Up's cleanest album to date.

David Comes to Life is absolutely worth the commitment, a convincing demonstration of what can happen when a band works without limitations.

In the end, the greatest testament to David Comes to Life is how it feels like there's more and more to it, even when you're already on sensory overload as it is.

It is an album based very clearly on a concept, an overall construct. Within that, Fucked Up once again morph themselves, moving further away from anything you could call hardcore (save Damian Abraham's voice).

Toronto six-piece deliver a killer concept album. [July 2011, p. 113]

What Fucked Up have done here is to take what they've been honing for the past 10 years and go one better, adding lush female vocals and celestial, electronica-inspired effects in an effort to constantly titillate and surprise.

Fucked Up's real appeal is simple: guitars, three of 'em, though it can seem like thirty.

David Comes to Life contains plenty of evidence that Fucked Up is still one of the strangest and most inventive guitar rock bands on the planet.

It's one 
of the most overly complicated hard-rock records 
of the past ten years. It's also one of the best.

They're also bracingly potent and screamingly vital; David Comes To Life is the work of a band openly aspiring to be great, and pulling it off.

The lyric sheet is essential to get any measure of the undoubtedly high-concept narrative, but the music is some of their most approachable and enjoyable yet, with extra depths to be plumbed if you so desire.

Two albums on and they're still assembling a uniquely imaginative mythology. [Jul 2011, p.82]

Even if you can't quite make out all the words to David's story, it still plays like a thriller.