Fucked Up

Toronto’s Fucked Up present a new single/video, “I Think I Might Be Weird,” off their forthcoming album One Day, out January 27th on Merge. Following singles “Found” and the title track, “I Think I Might Be Weird” finds the band blending hardcore with melodious classic rock featuring trilling violins. The surreal accompanying video, an ode to OCD, was directed by Maxwell McCabe-Lokos and co-written with guitarist Mike Haliechuk. This March,  Fucked Up will embark on UK and US tours in support of One Day – tickets go on sale this Friday at 10am EST.

Fucked Up’s sound has only gotten bigger, more hard-charging, with even denser thickets of melody. With One Day, the band delivers one of the most energizing and intricate albums of their entire career, a massive-sounding record that arrives in deceptively small confines. The Canadian hardcore legends have been known for their epic scale in the past, from towering concept albums to 12-hour performances—so it might be a surprise that Fucked Up’s sixth studio album is their shortest to date, written and recorded in the confines of one literal day (hence the title).

The idea to write and record an album in one day came to mind for Haliechuk in the closing months of 2019, and it forms the ideological and structural backbone of One Day. Haliechuk got himself into a studio and proceeded to write and record the record’s ten tracks over three eight-hour sessions, reconnecting with the core of his and the band’s songwriting essence in the process. Though work on One Day was completed remotely, Fucked Up as a whole adhered to the 24-hour rule during the creative process, including drummer Jonah Falco and vocalist Damian Abraham (who returned to contributing lyrics as well for the first time since 2014’s Glass Boys).

“It almost felt like it might be the last time I’d ever get to record vocals for anything,” Abraham says of the stakes he felt while putting his part to tape, before reflecting on how he approached the lyrical process: “What do I want to say to friends who aren’t here anymore? What do I want to say to myself? There was a lot of inner reflection going on, and after retreating into the fantasy world with Year of the Horse, this record is like we’re returning to real life.” The resulting One Day is a record that sounds full-bodied and immediate, with music that burns brutally and passionately in a way that only Fucked Up can evoke. The guitars sound like ziggurats reaching to the sky, reaching dizzying levels of melodic interplay while always maintaining a tuneful clarity. It’s an undeniable work of confidence from a band that continues to operate at the top of their game, making music that’s guaranteed to last a lifetime and beyond.