Year of the Horse

Theres something both admirable and daunting in Fucked Ups stubborn refusal to take the simple path or stay in one place with their music. As befits the worlds smartest hardcore band, Fucked Up insist on raising the stakes each time they release an album, and given how wildly ambitious 2008s The Chemistry of Common Life, 2011s David Comes to Life, and 2018s Dose Your Dreams were, it begs the question of just where they can go next. The groups ongoing Zodiac Series has given them safe spaces to experiment outside of their regular releases, but while theyve previously been EPs or extended singles, 2021s Year of the Horse is a truly epochal achievement, a 93-minute album in four parts with each movement containing enough sonic diversity and lyrical complexity to fill an LP by itself. Year of the Horse is a grand-scale concept album that trades in themes of magic, war, fantasy, and political and social allegory as the churning music shifts gears from into-the-wind punk to metal-style thunder, atmospheric folk, cool electronic pulsation, orchestral majesty, and countless stops in between. Year of the Horse was initially released digitally in four volumes, and listening to them all back to back is sometimes dazzling and just as often exhausting; Fucked Ups concept albums have been glorious musically yet increasingly hard to follow from a narrative standpoint, and Year of the Horse is truly a release where you cant tell the players without a scorecard. After a while, trying to keep up with the story falls to the wayside as you simply let the tidal waves of sound crash over your head. No other punk band (and very few bands period) would demand this level of engagement from their listeners when they release an album, and on the first few spins, Year of the Horse insists the audience bite off more than they can chew, which wasnt quite the case even on the mammoth Dose Your Dreams. However, if Year of the Horse is overstuffed, it manages to be so without seeming wasteful; this is an epic thats not big for its own sake, but the work of artists who are willing to challenge themselves even more than they challenge their audience. While its audacity is impressive enough, whats even more remarkable is how much of it works, and how seamlessly Fucked Up can weave together the endless variety of ingredients that comprise Year of the Horse. Dont go into this expecting casual listening (a notion Fucked Ups fans got used to years ago), but if youre willing to meet this music on its own terms, its impossible not to be dazzled by it. ~ Mark Deming