Albums of the Year (#10): Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
Our Music team cried and dragged their heels at the idea of ranking favourites, then remembered that everybody loves a bloody good list. For your delectation, The Skinny humbly presents a document of the fine records you might have missed in 2011
It’s a tale as old as time: boy meets girl, girl gets killed by bomb, boy goes full-Pirandello and duels the narrator, boy is born again – we think. As the meta-layers accumulate, David Comes To Life becomes increasingly opaque, though is no less exhilarating for it.
With such expansive ambition, Fucked Up’s densely-plotted rock-opera could well have fallen flat, a risk the band were all too aware of. “I was at my most worried right before the record was released,” recalls Mr Jo, A.K.A drummer Jonah Falco. “I always have this intense dread right before a record comes out that it will be our final and most failing gesture – as though the whole facade of Fucked Up as a 'good band' is going to crumble away.”
While any anxiety was soon quelled by strong reviews across the board upon its release in June, should it come to it, David Comes To Life would make for a triumphant final opus; as the inimitable Pink Eyes (vocalist Damian Abraham) sings on Truth I Know, “I have my legacy and I am proud.” Abraham has repeatedly suggested that he may soon quit touring, placing the band’s current incarnation in jeopardy, but obituaries can wait: Jonah acknowledges some uncertainty, but notes that Fucked Up have “never been a band whose future is firmly predicted.” He describes David… not as a eulogy, but as “the shake-up we needed,” and as far as he’s concerned, “Fucked Up will always be the six of us.”
Unless, that is, the right collaborators get in touch – after all, there’s a tradition of turning concept albums into films or stage shows. Hell, Green Day made Broadway… ”I think it would be best to wait for the offers to come to us,” laughs Jonah. Any thoughts on who they’d trust this hypothetical task to? “I'm thinking that Sergio Leone should be exhumed and reanimated to do the directing, David would be played by Jackie Mason, Veronica by Katy Perry, and Octavio by Jimmy Pursey. The whole thing would be re-written by the guys from Peep Show and it would debut at the Curzon.”
Sounds good to us – while we wait for their respective agents to hammer out the details/resurrect their clients, we’ll continue to pick through the album’s enigmas. “In fact”, Jonah suggests, “you should probably just all dedicate your entire existences to listening to David Comes To Life. It's for your own good!”
#9: M83 – Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
#5: King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine
#4: PJ Harvey – Let England Shake