I shouldn’t need to write much of an introduction for this record because it is an album that simply must be in any discerning music fan’s collection. Refused not only re-wrote the hardcore rulebook with this record, they shook up music as we know it. There’s a message, there’s a gut-churning experience and fuck me there’s a sound. Sadly it has taken a re-issue for me to actually own a copy of ‘The Shape Of Punk To Come’ on CD, having previously grabbed a copy on tape.
For whatever reason this record was completely overlooked by the mainstream upon its release in 1998. Looking back it’s simply astonishing how the music press missed out, because this is not just an amazing album and it’s not just fucking cool, it’s also one of the most ‘punk’ records released in the last 15 years. It’s so punk, that Dennis Lyxzen and crew proclaimed it so good they knew they would never top it – so promptly split up.
No review could ever do this record justice. It abandons every hardcore rule and throws in a new noise, no pun intended. There’s rage, politics and enough guitars and drums to make your ears bleed, but an intelligence years ahead of their time. To include techno beats and more effects than a Steven Spielberg movie just wasn’t what hardcore was all about – until Refused ripped shit up. From ‘Worms of the Senses/Faculties of the Skull’ through to the rip-roaring ‘The Deadly Rhythm’ and stopping off at ‘New Noise’ and ‘Protest Song ‘68′ along the way, it’s a sonic assault on the senses.
Re-inventing the wheel in music terms is almost impossible, especially when a myriad of clone soundalike bands merely want to out melody themselves. The state of the music scene makes a band like Refused so much more special. Calling them seminal doesn’t do them justice; they’re arguably an influence on every band that has recorded since 1998. They dared do different and opened so many new doors for bands – it seems ironic that in creating such a masterpiece it was other bands that cashed in. Either way, this is the shape of punk to come – and you’ll fucking love it…
Released on Burning Heart
Originally out on Epitaph
Paul