xREL.v3

Release information
Artist : Refused
Album : Freedom
Genre : Hardcore
Year : 2015
Label : Epitaph
Cat# : 7370-1
Source : Vinyl
Bitrate : VBRKbps
Size : 80,3 MB
Runtime : 42:30 min
URL : n/a

Tracklist
01. Elektra                                                  03:09
02. Old Friends / New War                                    04:24
03. Dawkins Christ                                           04:01
04. Fran afrique                                             04:35
05. Thought Is Blood                                         04:15
06. War On The Palaces                                       03:32
07. Destroy The Man                                          03:20
08. 366                                                      05:14
09. Servants Of Death                                        03:35
10. Useless Europeans                                        06:25

Release notes
Few acts to this day have put their best foot forward as
fully and completely as Refused on The Shape of Punk to Come.
In one 12-song collection, these ambitious Swedes were able
to distill their well-worn revolutionary message into a brew
that felt at once refreshing and visceral in a deeply
personal way - as if the songs came straight from the
listener's own subconscious, simmering just beneath the
surface and ready to come forward if the listener had only
been as bold as the masterminds behind the album. And they
were masterminds. For Shape of Punk's raw intensity disguised
a secret weapon: a conscious eclecticism and determination to
upend the norms of a genre whose sound had become worn out
and castrated by mainstream homogenization. The result was a
work that drew inspiration equally from classic punk and
jazz, film and counterculture poetry  was it really so
surprising that the result sounded so wide-ranging in scope?
The only question the band could answer after releasing such
a defining statement was how to possibly top it.
Their answer, of course, was to not even bother. The story of
the band's quick demise and subsequent immortalization feels
like legend, and is one of the more improbable rises to fame
in the already improbable canon of punk. You just don't fuck
with a legacy like that. Except that's exactly what Refused
decided to do on their 2012 reunion tour, and finally on
Freedom, an album that at once embraces the group's iconic
status and refuses to be constrained by it whatsoever. Nearly
two decades removed from their last work, the group has at
once nothing and everything to prove. They already
accomplished more than most acts will in a lifetime on a
single album, so new material could be at best a
reinvigoration, and at worst a small blemish on a legacy
already long secure. However, with so little past music to
their name, their future as a viable large-scale act largely
depends on proving that Refused still have something to say
in 2015, and haven't become the exact kind of apathetic
slaves to the system they rallied against before.
Thankfully, the one thing Freedom cannot be accused of is
playing it safe. Opener  Elektra  is a sucker punch of raw
energy and anti-establishment messages that feels like
Refused never left, with frontman Dennis Lyxzen screaming of
how  nothing has changed . However, Lyxzen's gruffer tone and
the more prog-leaning instrumentation are the first sign that
changes are indeed in store. This is accentuated dramatically
on  Old Friends/New War , as a vocoder effect intones
menacingly through acoustic guitar strumming and a simple
backbeat. When Lyxzen sings  I'm all out of appeals now/I'm
just going to scream now  in a soft, soothing inflection, it
feels right at home with the screams that follow. It is a
testament to the band's enduring commitment to eclecticism
and sonic diversity that many such moments of contrast
throughout the album feel natural and even occasionally
thrilling. The horn sections on  Francafrique  and  War on
the Palaces  add a dynamic canvas to each track's respective
classic rock inspired riffage, and  Servants of Death  is a
political sermon delivered over a straight-up funk beat in
shockingly effective fashion.
However, the record's appropriation of a wider variety of
genres occasionally leads to clumsy and glaring missteps,
most notably the children's choir awkwardly chanting away
exterminate the brutes  on the intro to  Francafrique .
Small moments of bad taste like these are spread throughout
the 10-track runtime, and the record is simply too
inconsistent to live up to its full potential. That being
said, there is something noble in Freedom's particular brand
of overreach, particularly coming from a band that could have
phoned in a record full of watered-down  New Noise  knockoffs
and probably made a lot of people happy. Nobody could've
blamed a band that never found a substantial fanbase before
their breakup for catering to their adoring festival crowds
by giving them exactly what they wanted, in the form of a
safe imitation of former glory. Instead, they gave the world
a challenging, diverse record that spans several genres while
always feeling like the same band. Just as they did before,
Refused will live and die on their own terms, and we wouldn't
have it any other way.

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