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Amazon.com's Best of 1998
If not the album of the year, it's at least the punk-rock album of the year, fiercely representing a musical ethos that has suffered the ignominious shame of commercial popularity. "We want the airwaves back!" shrieks singer (if you can use that word) Dennis, and over the course of The Shape of0
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Amazon.com's Best of 1998
If not the album of the year, it's at least the punk-rock album of the year, fiercely representing a musical ethos that has suffered the ignominious shame of commercial popularity. "We want the airwaves back!" shrieks singer (if you can use that word) Dennis, and over the course of The Shape of Punk to Come's 12 sonically stunning tracks, they reclaim the right to rage, rant, and innovate. The Refused broke up soon after recording this album, but they've left behind an invigorating manifesto. --Tod Nelson
It's a ballsy move to claim you're reinventing a musical genre that has been slogging along quite happily for more than two decades, but the Refused back up their chutzpah with an absolutely awe-inspiring and fearless slab of musical mayhem. The Shape of Punk to Come is nothing short of a punk-rock manifesto. Hardcore pathos is merely the foundation for their architecture: upon that they build an edifice of political expression with a take-no-prisoners approach to the search for artistic meaning and a musical liberation that includes elements of speedcore, free jazz, electronica, lo-fi, and absolutely no pop. Politics, art, and music merge into one monolithic whole. The disc starts with the spoken epigraph, "They told me that the classics never go out of style, but they do, they do," followed by a swirling mess of noise that finally jells into the last undiscovered thunderous riff of "Worms of the Senses/Faculties of the Skull." The song stutters, then speeds along, skips, pauses, then rolls. They follow that with the groovy Gang of Four metronomic punch of "Liberation Frequency." When vocalist Dennis sings, "We want the airwaves back" in a sweet falsetto that belies his ability to deliver a screech not unlike a bull alligator clearing its throat, you believe this band isn't going to gently rise up the Billboard charts; they'd rather storm the ramparts. Unfortunately, when the band writes a song called "The Refused Are Fuckin' Dead," they aren't kidding around: the band broke up before the release of Shape. Let's hope enough people hear this album to kick-start the revolution. --Tod Nelson
"If there's a punk/hardcore/emo/screamo/etc. album released in the '00s that wasn't influenced by this album, it was probably released by a band that had been around prior to Refused. Otherwise, this album echoes throughout every song by every band that rose in the wake of Refused's demise & showed up on a Warped Tour bill, as well as At the Drive-In's Relationship of Command. The band is only now seeing some financial success, as their 2012 reunion tour dates have all sold out.
Favorite song: ""
""summerholidays vs. punkroutine"
For several years I was dead set on being the lead singer in my own band, and during that time The Shape of Punk to Come came out. This song perfectly captured my mindset at the time (especially since I'd given up on college then), and I had to look through my lyrics to make sure it hadn't somehow been stolen from me. (It hadn't.)
Lyrics: I'm tired of losing myself to some
Stupid childhood dream of what I could have been
Money proves the point and I'm stuck be"
the giraffe added this to a list 1 year, 2 months ago
"January 8th-14th
"Worms of the Senses/Faculties of the Skull"
On January 9th, Refused announced that they are "NOT FUCKING DEAD" & will be performing a reunion show at Coachella Music Festival in April. Initially it was announced that it would be their only performance, but then they started adding European dates so apparently that wasn't true. Then after both weekends of Coachella sold out they started adding other U.S. dates & so on. I didn't manage to get a ticket for either weekend of Coach"
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