Refused ProfileTruth be told Refused are a complete one-trick pony.
Sure, they were together seven years and produced three full-lengths and a handful of EPs. But really, it’s their 1998 pre-meltdown swansong, The Shape Of Punk To Come, that ensured they’re still talked about in hushed tones all these years later. It was certainly a landmark LP, one that took a grab bag of disparate influences and turned them into a powerfully cohesive and utterly individual statement in the world of hardcore.
Wisely, the now reformed Swedish quartet hasn’t tried to make The Shape Of Punk To Come Part II. Instead, Freedom, their first album since 1998, is a calmer offering that at times flirts with a pop sensibility. Take Servants Of Death for example, a funky, almost danceable offering. Then there’s the acoustic-edged gothic melodrama of Useless Europeans and the rocktastic Destroy The Man, complete with an “oh oh” refrain. That said, Refused do take time to prove they haven’t lost their ability to create visceral hardcore. Although there’s nothing here as explosive as, say, New Noise, or Refused Party Program, the Shellback-penned (I know — go figure) Elektra hits hard, as does the acerbic Dawkins Christ. Lyrically, frontman Dennis Lyxzen has dumped the slightly cringeworthy undergraduate anti-capitalist poetry that infected The Shape Of Punk To Come, instead channelling his anger towards more specific targets such as colonial oppression (Francafrique) and First World privilege (Useless Europeans).
Refused do nothing on Freedom to destroy their legacy but instead offer up a challenging set of tunes symbolic of a band determined to never tread water.
