When Fucked Up released One Day earlier this year, we marked the occasion by asking drummer Jonah Falco to rank the band's five best songs. Among them was the title track of 2008's The Chemistry of Common Life, which Falco called a "beaming and nourishing success of all our ambition at the time."
The band are celebrating 15 years of their sophomore full-length record with an anniversary reissue. Part of the Matador Records Revisionist History series, the 2LP transparent orange pressing of The Chemistry of Common Life is set to be released on February 23 and is now available for pre-order. Fucked Up will also perform the album in its entirety at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern on October 14.
"After Hidden World it felt like all of the musical impulses of Fucked Up condensed and turned into this musical dew, which inexplicably settled in this heavier, condensed place," Falco reflected in a press release. "The layering became way more intentional and focused, and instead of just making things long for the sake of being long, dense for the sake of being dense, the length and weight of our songs was necessary to house newfound compositional moves. Development, tension, narrative and space in song."
He continued, "In some ways it felt like mockery — putting bongos on 'Crooked Head' and French horn on 'Days of Last,' 'Royal Swan' having about 1 percent punk involved, etc. — but in other ways opened the door for us moving forward to give these outlying ideas about our music precedence in our songwriting. Chemistry was unchained and free creativity from inexperienced and raw, but demanding and developing musicians."
The announcement comes alongside a new video for the album's "Black Albino Bones," assembled from tour photos, videos and ephemera from that era — including a 30-second clip from the fabled 12-hour album release show in New York City that garnered appearances from members of the Vivian Girls, Vampire Weekend and the Cro-Mags, as well as Dinosaur Jr.'s J. Mascis and, for a moment, even Michael Stipe. Check that out below.
The band are celebrating 15 years of their sophomore full-length record with an anniversary reissue. Part of the Matador Records Revisionist History series, the 2LP transparent orange pressing of The Chemistry of Common Life is set to be released on February 23 and is now available for pre-order. Fucked Up will also perform the album in its entirety at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern on October 14.
"After Hidden World it felt like all of the musical impulses of Fucked Up condensed and turned into this musical dew, which inexplicably settled in this heavier, condensed place," Falco reflected in a press release. "The layering became way more intentional and focused, and instead of just making things long for the sake of being long, dense for the sake of being dense, the length and weight of our songs was necessary to house newfound compositional moves. Development, tension, narrative and space in song."
He continued, "In some ways it felt like mockery — putting bongos on 'Crooked Head' and French horn on 'Days of Last,' 'Royal Swan' having about 1 percent punk involved, etc. — but in other ways opened the door for us moving forward to give these outlying ideas about our music precedence in our songwriting. Chemistry was unchained and free creativity from inexperienced and raw, but demanding and developing musicians."
The announcement comes alongside a new video for the album's "Black Albino Bones," assembled from tour photos, videos and ephemera from that era — including a 30-second clip from the fabled 12-hour album release show in New York City that garnered appearances from members of the Vivian Girls, Vampire Weekend and the Cro-Mags, as well as Dinosaur Jr.'s J. Mascis and, for a moment, even Michael Stipe. Check that out below.
