Fucked Up – Dose Your Dreams LP (Merge Records)

Fucked Up is a hardcore punk based in Toronto, Canada and so far has released five studio albums, alongside several EPs, singles, and companion releases. Fucked Up has collaborated extensively with other artists on their records and during live performances. Hidden World features guest instrumentation from Final Fantasy, and guest vocals by Ben Cook of No Warning (two years before he joined the band), George Pettit and Dallas Green, formerly of Alexisonfire, Chris Colohan of Cursed, and Heidi Hazelton. Year of the Pig was written in part with Max Mccabe-Locos of The Deadly Snakes, who plays piano and organ on the record, and a lead vocal by Jennifer Castle of Castlemusic. In late 2007, the holiday charity single David Christmas featured guest vocals from Nelly Furtado, Davey Havok, David Cross, Shenae Grimes of Degrassi: The Next Generation and Faris Badwan of The Horrors, among others, so it seems that Fucked Up have a diverse taste in music and extend their hands on various genres while picking the artists for collaborations. Dose Your Dreams LP is their fifth studio album and you can tell Fucked Up traveled a long way from a simple hardcore punk band, which they’ve been on their Hidden World LP, and came to the point where they mix various stuff with their well known four chord music. Dose Your Dreams delivers tons of electronic beats, psychedelic melodies, ambient backgrounds, but still, this is hardcore punk in much more art punk form. They simply want to outstand from the crowd with very creative arrangements and whoever spent some time listening to hardcore punk records, can’t blame them for doing that. Hardcore punk can be generic and boring, with all the same riffs and basslines, same old drum rhythms, so Fucked Up decided to spend their time doing music full-time which will raise them from a bunch of the same old bands and do something different. No wonder why this album is so unique because it took them three years to record all the stuff they wanted to put on the record and mix it all together into a piece of a very distinctive punk rock. Dose Your Dreams contains eighteen weird punk rock tunes for your listening pleasure and it’s available on vinyl through Merge Records.