Fucked Up: Brilliant punks or flawed rockers?

Fucked Up: more than the greatest punks?

If an album is one of the best hardcore punk albums you've ever heard, does that also make it a great album? On the one hand, the record is clearly at the top of its game. But on the other hand, sticking to well-established guidelines is self-limiting.

I can't quite figure out how to answer that question, but it's the essential dilemma I'm facing in writing about Toronto band Fucked Up's new hardcore epic David Comes To Life, which was released on Matador last week.

This much is true: David Comes to Life is about as good and enjoyable a hardcore punk record as I've heard in a while. The three-guitar group has done a lot of growing up (despite a name that ensures they're only going to be taken so seriously). The 18-song, nearly 80-minute long epic is full of terrific riffs and and rhythms. Arrangements on the record are masterfully done. From the haunting piano and guitar build of the first track, "Let Her Rest," you can tell you're listening to something entirely different, something more than a bunch of amped up guitar anthems.

In fact, according to the members of the band, David Comes to Life is a hardcore punk rock opera (my term, not theirs) that follows a narrative of a young man who falls in love with a girl and is then forced to deal with the girl's death. It's a classic narrative, and certainly an interesting direction to take a record of hardcore, typically a music of politics, protest and realism, not love and loss.

For fans of hardcore, David Comes to Life, will definitely resonate. As I said above, it may be one of the best of the form eve recorded, recalling the energy and ambition of mid '80s pioneers of the sound, but with much better recording techniques than SST or Dischord could ever offer back in the day.

For the rest of us though, David Comes to Life seems to have two flaws that I can't seem to get over.

First and foremost is the voice of lead singer Damian Abraham. Abraham is a terrific frontman. He's a natural showman -- who seems to always end up naked (or close to it) -- who can command an adoring crowd as masterfully as anyone. But for an album concept that would seem to demand a range of emotion, Abraham's  top-of-the-lungs scream/growl expresses only rage. It's not convincing in any other role e.g. meeting a girl, falling in love and sorrow over the loss of that love.

I say this as a guy who has listened to my fair share of hardcore records. Bad Brains and Fugazi are among my favorite bands. But there's something about the ambition of this album that doesn't seem to match the band's capabilities. Hearing this record, it feels a lot like Abraham is really holding the band back from a much more rich range of expression.

Finally, David Comes to Life is excessively long. At 1 hour, 17 minutes and 48 seconds, it's at least twice as long as it should be. Here again, though, this is likely more a problem with Abraham. The band simply doesn't have the ability to switch gears in a meaningful way. It's just not possible to be yelled at for that long and not feel exhausted by the whole thing.

As tough as it is to get over the monotony of Abraham, I think David Comes to Life is worth finding and hearing. The arrangements and musicianship are really top notch. More important, it rocks. I really want to like the record. I only wish Abraham -- or someone else -- had found a way to give the songs the depth they deserve.