One Day

10 short, snappy songs, with as much melodic finesse as there is coruscating noise. [Mar 2023, p.77]

This one does find itself running out of steam a little towards its conclusion without enough robust new ideas. For the most part, though, this bold experiment pays off, and Fucked Up can be admired for their ambition as much as they can for their enviable productivity.

What One Day achieves then, unshackled by this lingering desire for overarching grand narratives, is the purest distillation of that "lightning in a bottle" frenzy, capturing the collective's creative spark at its most urgent — that is: less bells, all whistles.

Despite it being one of their shortest albums, their feral-like energy continues to demand your attention for the full 40 minutes.

One Day is a fearless from a band who punched the clock out cold.

An electrifying exercise in first thought as best thought, ... One Day is thrillingly direct. [Feb 2023, p.83]

They deliver one unforced, shout-out anthem after another—mirroring the immediate tunefulness of their Canadian counterparts Japandroids' Celebration Rock. Does the celebration get too rowdy for its own good? Well, sometimes. The hook-driven energy can get way ahead of you if you're not fully committed to it. Even so, there's a lot to ponder in their resistance with closer inspection.

Ultimately, One Day comes with an interesting narrative that gives people like me something to write about, and as an experiment, it was surely a challenge and a creative accelerant. These are all good things.

On One Day, Fucked Up sound freer and more purely happy to be making music together than they have in years.

One Day equally recalls the strengths of Fucked Up’s critically acclaimed second record, The Chemistry of Common Life (2008), which received the 2009 Polaris Music Prize. ... One Day is in keeping with this spirit of invention and reinvention, by expanding the group’s sound while still maintaining an ethos of ongoing collaboration and collective commitment.

One Day is massive, even if it is short by comparison. Again, the sound is huge with layered guitars and ghostly layered background vocals. Singer Damian Abraham’s bark is a blasted out as ever. But, whereas Fucked up is sometimes dark and scary, here the sound is positively bright.

Although it has some thematic overlap with Glass Boys, One Day amalgamates its disparate lyrical and musical ideas, as well as the confidence of its performances and compositions, into a novel, thrilling 40 minutes.

This album is diverse, thoughtful and – most importantly – rewarding. It’s not the strongest work of Fucked Up’s career - but it may very well be the most thrilling.

Staggering, and arguably the purest and fullest expression of the band in its current form. ... For those already converted, this is sure to tattoo a permanent smile on your face, but it will no doubt satisfy even the most casual appreciator of punk, hardcore or classic rock too.

It's a fairly smooth and coherent affair. [Feb 2023, p.28]