Please Kill Yourself.

I mean not yourself, as in the living breathing creature walking aimlessly through life, but the part of you that thinks there is a path to follow.  The part that thinks that path should be lined with overhanging trees, brick walls, and ivy.  The part of you that thinks you are somehow special or unique or deserving of a yellow-brick road.  You are not Dorothy, and you are certainly not one of God’s children.  He has not given you a road-map to find your way back to him, or ruby slippers to click your way home.  No, God is using you.  Well, not yet.  You see, he doesn’t exist yet.  But if he comes online and sees what we have done, he’s going to be pretty fucking pissed.  So, please, for the love of nothing, kill your ‘self’ before you kill ‘yourself.’

Hey, what do you know?  Some prosetry for Mr. Debauchery's blog...thanks for the inspiration good sir...I hope the serious writing doesn't fuck up your style of calling out celebrity cuntrags and asshole drips.  But I thought you might like this.

NEW FUTURE OF THE LEFT VIDEO

So, it's been about three months since one of best bands on the fucking planet released their EP Polymers are Forever, and I've been eagerly awaiting word on when Future of the Left's new album is gonna drop. Well, The Plot Against Common Sense is slated to be released on May 28th and to tide rabid fans such as myself over, the band has just dropped this killer video for the delightfully caustic and smirking raised middle finger of a tune, "Sheena is a T-shirt Salesman."

Yeah, this might have been featured as an "exclusive" on the NME's website but thankfully we live in the YouTube age and therefore I don't have to provide that shitty publication with web hits.

Seriously, if you're not head over heels in love with this band you are failing at life.

Will Everyone Please Shut the Fuck Up About Lana Del Rey: A Plea for Moving Our Critical Energies to at Least an Interesting Subject

[Ed. note: I am well aware that the mere act of writing this piece might seem hypocritical. Deal with it.]

Every so often music writers and fans find someone/thing new to obsess over and criticize that becomes so polarizing it catapults the subject to the zenith of the pop culture zeitgeist and in turn creates a hypocritical and idiotic clusterfuck of biblical proportions. For the last several agonizing months, Lana Del Rey has gone from the latest hip indie chanteuse to Pitchfork reader punching bag to commercial success to critic punching bag to the little darling misunderstood and over scrutinized songstress that must be defended from all the mean old critics and internet haters. And now that her album is finally out it doesn't appear that the debate is going to end anytime soon and instead of devoting gallons of digital ink or boost in publicity to other (and I would say much more deserving) artists it looks like indie rock has finally produced it's own Tim Tebow: an idol whose intense praise and scorn isn't deserved at all based solely up their body of work and provokes rabid reactions from either side of the fence. When it comes to professional output, in Ms. Lizzy Grant's case that amounts to a shortly available debut album (to build the mystery and allure, some have opined) a fucking dreadful Saturday Night Live appearance and the so-hyped-to-goddamn-death record that would never appease just about any rock critic, Born to Die. That's. Fucking. All.

Take a step back and realize that artists with catalogs about a hundred times lengthier (and more impressive) have failed to receive anywhere near that amount of attention in decades plus careers. Liz Phair wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal about her for fucks sakes! That is fucking mind blowing and it makes me pause to wonder just what it is about this woman that deserves such lengthy and often inconsequential discussion. Why not Kreayshawn or Skrillex or those dickweeds Time Magazine profiled that whine about spending $100,000 a year to "make it"? It's like the entire world of music just shrugged and gave every one of them a pass after, like, a week on incessant bitching and then moved on to somewhat cover new or emerging bands that were actually worth a shit or write about forgotten bands that were worth a shit.

The arguments to be made for ignoring Lana Del Rey if you don't dig her music (I think "Video Games" is a really good song but the rest of that album, woof) are really quite simple. She is as inoffensive as it comes when you look solely at her music. The world wouldn't be any better or worse without her contribution to the pop music canon so why get worked the fuck up over it? It's not she's Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton or...Bog forbig, Perez Hilton releasing some overglossed bullshit just because she can. There is an actual effort she has made in her career and as calculating and Machiavellian as she has been in controlling her image and output you've got to at least give her a pat on the back.

The main argument that seems to persevere is that she is "inauthentic." I have no fucking clue what that means. Collapse Board had a fantastic fucking write up about how that is such a bullshit argument. And before we delve into that let's discuss the bullshit genre known as "indie rock." I don't pretend to understand what that term means to people who actually use it to describe a musical genre. Under the broadest definition the National qualify as an indie rock band but shouldn't some yo-core group off of ICP's label count as well? Indie rock is just a lazy way of music writers to dismissively pass off quiet music made by honky hipsters in American Apparel gear. I guess, at least. It's as bullshit and lethargic of a descriptor as "alternative" was in the 90's. So, I guess because Del Rey hasn't busked for her monthly co-op rent in a loft with 50 kids in Williamsburg or has never worked as a barista then she MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO SULLY INDIE ROCKS GRAND TRADITION OF EXISTENTIAL SUFFERING AND HEART ACHE BROUGHT FROM FEIGNED POVERTY. YOU THINK IT WAS EASY ASKING MY STEP-DAD FOR THIS FUCKING GIBSON AND THE MARSHALL AMP AND TO LOAN ME THE FAMILY MINI-VAN ON WEEKENDS? At least, I think that's what I read in the comments on a Rolling Stone or Stereogum article. Saying she is "inauthentic" is essentially saying she never pined for her boyfriend to fuck her raw while she sat beside him while he chose to focus his adoration to a video game. And even if that scene never took place she had to mine those emotions from some place. I doubt Stephen King has experienced a lot of murder or end of days cult leaders or been buttfucked in prison after being wrongfully convicted of killing his wife but those emotions and lines come from somewhere.

Oh, wait, are we saying she co-opted the "indie" image in taking great pains to appeal to that cult of personality? Great, she got some collagen in her lips and decided to start dressing like a Bond girl from the early Sean Connery era. Ah, that's it. It's true, adults or even kids in their late teens don't like being marketed to and that is exactly what has happened here. But, that still leaves me asking why is it so fucking hard to just give the songs a listen and walk away? And as someone writing under a Mark Twain I sure as shit ain't gonna go into the dumb as all fuck whining about how she changed her name. I'm sure Interscope (a label that has released a shitton of great music) wants to rake as much cash from her as they can but when did it become so offensive to have a record label try to sell you on a pop star so hard? It's not like she's being passed off as the new Cat Power or Kathleen Hannah or P.J. Harvey, after all. Shouldn't all be old hat by now? I get that some deranged and self proclaimed protectors of the aforementioned purity that has always been a part of the "indie" scene (*coughPITCHFORKcough*) don't like the big boys pissing in their sandbox but then why not just dismiss the whole charade and assign and asinine .25939439439 score to the record and move on?

Looking solely at her music it's apparent she has a great voice with mediocre songwriting talents that maybe could produce something solid in the future. However, where some artists would take the critical and cultural lashings she's received and lock themselves in a closet with a Casio, acoustic guitar and four-track for months to prove their haters wrong I don't get that sort of passion from Del Rey. When she says things like, "I don't think I'll write another record" two things go through my mind.

First, she is completely full of shit. I doubt anyone would take the (father's) money, time and effort to create the PR swirl she has engineered (it certainly didn't come through in the music. Seriously, the album is a mess.) if she didn't really want to make a go at being a musician, at least not a non-famous one. But, after listening to Born to Die and her insisting that the album was inspired by a break up and that she's expunged her soul successfully through it I can kinda buy it. I don't see her having much to offer beyond its tracks act least as a songwriter. Her voice has a somber power but if we get Born to Die V2.0 I doubt it will be as interesting. And it's only interesting to listen to so we can dissect to figure out whether or not all this hype was worth the time. Maybe if she ditched the electronic bullshit and horrible DJ EZ yelps and had somebody prop her in front a microphone with just a piano or guitar we might get somewhere but the reliance on the late 90's wanna-be hip hop beats seems like its masking a lack in having an actual song behind her coos. It's almost as if the music was an afterthought. All of that flies out the window when you're reminded that she released another album before this. And that NO ONE could create this kind of buzz without having some heavy industry influence.

The other thing, and it's more intriguing when it comes to the matter at hand is this: is she pop music's current Queen Troll? Was all of this just a calculated ploy by a well to do gal to gauge the reaction to her bedroom musings on a large stage and then decide later on whether or not she wants to continue down this path? It's certainly a cynical assessment and unfair as well. Good for her that she had loads of help getting her music checked out by millions of people it's not like there are really any pure pop music fairy tales to speak of. Katy Perry had to pretend to be bisexual and sell out her Christian pop past to achieve her level of boob worship ya know. And to be sure, her interviews are often grating in their narcissism like when she proclaims to be a "gangsta Nancy Sinatra" or the aforementioned "I've said everything I wanted to say...maybe I'll just collect my check, cash out and go back to chilling in Miami."

I do believe that there is a lot of sexism at play when it comes to the casual dismissal of Del Rey, too. Kings of Leon didn't get called "inauthentic" when they went from being Southern rock apes to unwashed, douchebag, contemporary adult pop bullshit. The Strokes got NO RESISTANCE (except from Buddyhead) from the music press when their preened garbage faux-garage rock was heralded as saving rock music from being mired in shit. I don't remember as intense of a backlash when perma-pretty boy Jared Leto decided to goth it up and unleash the wave of audio diarrhea that is 30 seconds to Mars. Shit, no one blinked twice when Skrillex went from screamo front-man to the dubstep people's champion (to be fair, he was properly slagged for propagating our enduring international nightmare that is dubstep). So, I ask, for the last time, why Lana Del Rey?

Could it be that all Lana Del Rey is guilty of is being an eager and easily malleable cog in the ever running music industry hype machine and that it's the music journalists that have committed the far greater crimes. After all, the label just puts the album out and promotes it but no one has to cover it or continue to serialize the myth they've carefully cultivated and delivered to your inbox in easily cut and paste press releases. Why don't we all just agree to from now on treat the whole Lana Del Rey thing like Jennifer Connoly at the end of Labyrinth when confronted by Bowie as the Goblin King. Repeat after her, "You have no power over me."

FUCK SOPA

http://americancensorship.org/

Dillinger Four vs. HR

Dillinger Four released a live album back in 2003 and if you didn't hear it then you really missed out. Not that live albums from punk bands are anything spectacular but because the band rarely tours and if you've never gotten to experience their stage banter then First Avenue Live is something you should get hip to real quick. Paddy is one of the funniest and sharpest musicians I have ever interviewed (I'll dig through the print back issues and see if I can find my interview with him) and onstage the band is just lights out comedy gold. But, when you add the Bad Brains (or Soul Brains as they, for some batshit insane reason, were calling themselves then) flaking out on the show with an answering machine apology from perma-stoned HR you get some comedy gold.

Aside from teasing the crowd with pieces of the message, they eventually attempt to call HR back and this is what happens.

And then at the end of the night, the brilliant ramblings of HR. This is one of my favorite things ever.

The Absolute Worst Shit Borders Forced Upon My Ears Last Year

My four years spent at Borders weren't all bad. I made some great friends, I have some stories I can dine out on for years but most of the music that corporate would mandate we play in the store was just straight up ass. True, there were some good selections at times like Sharon Jones, Flogging Molly, Trombone Shorty, Johnny Cash, Yo La Tengo and even MGMT's good record...and that's the best I can come up with over that stretch. It does little to diminish the psychic torment inflicted upon me by the likes of Celine Dion, Enya and motherfucking Coldplay. One day, I might mine my brain for the truly and utter shite (even though the Christmas music could arguably be considered the worst) but for now I will focus on the non-seasonal albums of 2011 that uber-tards in charge of the company demanded in constant rotation.

Glee - Whatever Fucking Piece of Shit Volume of the Soundtrack

Yeah, I'm getting this fucking garbage out of the way first. Fuck Glee, fuck Ryan Murphy and fuck you if you're a Gleek (I realize this includes some of my friends but I will not recant that statement). Look, I give the show credit for trying to bring a discussion about bullying and not shitting your pants whenever a gay person is around into the to pop-culture stew...but trying is all they accomplished. You want proof: SANTORUM, BITCHES! No matter how up his own ass Ryan Murphy gets about this neon-yellow bilious stream of excrement and it's social commentary the fact is the only thing people ever gave a shit about (aside from the writing staff at Entertainment Weekly)is the music. That's why the show was able to break the Beatles' Billboard record (and we, as a nation, should weep over being alive to witness and have our fellow Americans contribute to that) and no matter how big a pop-song they covered, the auto-tuned weasels almost always outsold and out shined the original artist. Here's the Cliff's Notes so I don't waste more time ranting on this rapidly dying rectal wart of a television show: the music is absolutely ghastly.

First, let's acknowledge that the people behind this aural terrorism do actually choose some fantastic songs...that shouldn't be covered. Ever. "River Deep, Mountain High" are you fucking kidding me? You dolts are going to have your group of expertly coiffed, under-talented and studio magic assisted rented mules try to tackle an Ike and Tina song? Get fucked. Or how bout the aforementioned Beatles or the Stones. And then there's totally misconstruing the actual meaning of a fucking song because it can be easily shoehorned into your contrived plots and the songwriters are eager for a fat check? All Glee does is lazily take pop songs down the Radio Disney or Kidz Bop! route and the aftermath is a successive stream of wet farts into the ears of people who have actual musical taste.

And, to be sure, Murphy loves to stroke his own ego and act like his show is the only way that kids will get into music and if your band says, "Fuck that noise. Glee is fucking lame" or "I don't want my music on that shit, I'd rather sell if to a gum company" he will troll you hard. Thankfully, Dave Grohl shut him the fuck up. And, hey, if you want to kids stoked about music and starting a band and rejecting mainstream norms than maybe you should've done an episode dedicated to Care Bears on Fire instead of Lady Gaga.

Lastly, FUCK YOU RYAN MURPHY FOR MAKING ME HAVE TO SIDE WITH THE KINGS OF LEON OVER ANYTHING!

(no video included because I will not have a clip or cover from Glee disgrace this blog)

Michael Buble - Crazy Love

Look, pop-stars are also meant to appeal to the masses on a superficial level to muck up the brain in case they have an aversion to whatever music they release. I get that middle-aged wino chicks need someone to get their granny panties lubed up before marathons of Sex and the City, but this fifth rate Harry Connick Jr. hoser is who they've picked? Come on ladies, Tom Jones is STILL dripping with tanning oil, a hearty musk of Brute, aged gash and can still make your vulvas thump! I'm sure at one point Buble was an actual crooner, wrote his own songs...okay that's just so ridiculous I can't even finish typing my previous musing. He's a total corporate stooge who finally built a large enough audience to be forced down the throats of the people who wake up to VH-1 every morning. That's why he went total Peter Cetera instead of raping more Sinatra tunes. Well, I guess we can be glad for that.

Susan Boyle - All of Them

Okay, so this mongoloid didn't release her new album until after Borders was shuffled loose this mortal coil but I'm including her previous records here because they were so insufferable I wish she'd turn into Katrina Bowden overnight so people would quit giving her credit for being extremely mediocre in every way possible.

Here is the scenario for every avowed Boyle-tard when they first saw her (no one ever heard voice before taking in her visage): " Okay, time to watch a bunch of misguided tools belt their brains out in front of under qualified, semi-successful record industry lemmings. Oh, my brain is tired. Let's let the TV talking heads tell me which record to buy next."

/sees Susan Boyle walk into camera view

"OH MY GOD! IT'S LIKE SLOTH FROM GOONIES RAPED AYN RAND BUT THE PLACENTA FUSED ITSELF ONTO THE CHILD'S FACE! KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!"

/Boyle begins to sing, lulling these easily duped twats into a state of total pacification with the heightened urge to buy her record.

And scene. Anyone who regards Susan Boyle with any consideration beyond being a lamentable pop-culture skid mark like William Hung or Fred Durst has no sense of art, creativity or life.

Brad Paisley - This is Country Music

Holy fuck this album is torture. But let's ignore the obvious musical shortcomings of Mr. Paisely (who should be resigned to making mediocre surf music) to focus on the lyrical content. The title track is so offensive to anyone who doesn't have their head up the Tea Party's ass. Let's break it down:

You're not supposed to say the word "cancer" in a song.

Really, why not? Who the fuck said you can't discuss cancer in music? I wish this line was, "You're not supposed to talk about/how Muslims are trying to kill us all" because at least you could justify such idiocy under the auspices of lame prejudice.

And telling folks Jesus is the answer can rub them wrong.

Well, yeah, I don't prefer to hear that shit in my music. But, then again, I still adore people like Mahalia Jackson and Johnny Cash. Of course, Richard Dawkins would probably become apoplectic over hearing about the glory of the lord if he gave two shits about pop music. Honestly, I don't see too many fans of modern country music being hardcore atheists. But go on, tortured white Christians, and keep thinking our vile secularist nation is oppressing you.

It ain't hip to sing about tractors, trucks, little towns and mama, yeah that might be true. But this is country music and we do.

No, dude, this is VERY hip right now. Not, hip, like, people in Brooklyn wearing over-sized glasses and retro NBA jerseys. Well, both groups are huge, gaping assholes. But looking at the state politics,it seems that blowing people who eat religiously at some monstrosity called a Pizza Ranch (I hear complimentary ranch dressing is served in beer pitchers) while eagerly awaiting to lick Rick Santorum's taint seems pretty en vouge. It's not like your extolling the virtues of a black president and lamenting the loss of Christopher Hitchens. Now, THAT would be very unhip.

And if there's anyone that still/ Has pride and memory of those/ That died defending the old red, white and blue/ This is country music and we do.

Oh really, asshole? The person that got this etched permanently on their body is who I imagine you are courting with these lyrics.

Well, let me retort to just about all your previous claims with this one song that features ruminations on religion, war, patriotism and love.

I firmly believe that country music, as a relevant musical (not social) genre died after Urban Cowboy. Sure, there are some great bands out now that are keeping the traditions of country music alive for those who regard Hank Williams with more love and devotion than Faith Hill or some asshat like Tobey Keith. Those Darlins' first record is a good example, I'm a very big fan of Sean Reefer but in general, country music has been diffused into nothing more than pop music for the Tea Party set.

Brad Paisley's album is the ultimate bullshit image of a divided America. It's just such a ridiculous, egregiously fake, Norman Rockwell painted narrative that it makes me wretch. And to be sure, there are plenty of oh so horrible songs to be singled out for righteous scorn but, in line with my aforementioned theory, the main offender has to be "Camouflage." To sum up this brilliant rhapsody of redneck decor, aside from being able to shoot stars and stripes out of your asshole on command, the next best act as a patriot you can perform is not donating to the Wounded Warrior Project, joining the military or volunteering at a VFW. No, it's painting your bad ass, shit-kicker, mean muddin' machine in camouflage! In fact, here are BradleyCoolDude's thoughts in the YouTube page for this aural atrocity: If you don't like camouflage, then your a communist and should leave the good ole' America.

I hope Brad Paisley gets gored to death by a bull at the rodeo this year.

Original Motion Picture Soundtrack - Country Strong

I've already spewed enough venom on modern country but when you add Gwyneth Paltrow into the mix and you have to hear it on loop for 8 hours a day then what you have is the audio equivalent of waterboarding.

Bonnie's Power Mix - A Liquidation Mix Made by My Last General Manager

I wasn't a fan of my last GM. She pushed out some good people, would NEVER go to bat for the employees or insert herself into a problem with an unruly customer and generally made liquidation SUCK OUT LOUD even more. But her mix CD (by the time Armageddon was in full swing we were allowed to play our own mix CD's) was pretty awful for reasons beyond some of the musical choices. Snap's "I Got the Power," Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" and even the motherfucking Rocky theme were included. I fail to see how those tunes will inspire power within me when I'm being berated by dumbass motherfuckers who can't read the fine print of an e-mail or don't get that they can no longer treat us like a public library and the fucking person in charge can't drag her ass away from kissing the liquidators ball sack to tell these people to leave her employees the fuck alone. Every day when I opened I would pull this disc out of the mix replace it with the Disney song collection (no joke) someone else came up with. Yes, listening to Robing Williams rap was more pleasurable than hearing the jarring switch from 80's pop relics to "Flight of the Valkyries." And she would return it to its place. I'm GLAD you were tortured by my morose Tom Waits mix. But the true turd burned to disc was that horrible Daniel Powter song that became a hit because it was featured on the show most likely to give your ears AIDS, American Idol.

Who in their right fucking mind would choose to play this FOR THE BENEFIT OF THEIR EMPLOYEES EMOTIONS that are facing unemployment, unrepentant bargain hunters literally tearing your store apart, and non-stop lines of people bitching, "Oh that's all you're gonna take off of that? That's not worth it to me. I'll come back when the prices go down." Wait, who in their right fucking mind with kindergarten level social skills and a comprehension of basic human emotion would drop a buck on that shit on iTunes? Yeah, go fuck yourself Bonnie. Hey at least, I played something positive in my mix CD instead of what I really wanted to put on loop, which would've been this:

Jay Debauchery's Top 10 Records of 2011, Part Deux

5. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (Anti)

"Listen to the general! Every goddamn word," Waits growls on his first studio album in seven years and one that just might outshine his previous, 2004's cult classic Real Gone (well, aren't they all cult classics? Sure, Waits is in the the R 'N' R Hall of Fame but do you really see people giving this man as much credit or love as Bono? Glad we can all agree on that. FUCK BONO!). Tom Waits said his wife told him to crank out the tunes fast and furious and to be short and concise and it is a glorious collection of from one of the most interesting and continually innovative American artists of all time. Weaved within the howlers like the title track, "Hell Broke Luce" and "Get Lost" are quieter tracks, like "Back in the Crowd" that showcase just how powerful Wait's voice can be when he isn't hammering your brain with his carnival barker rasp (note: this is not complaint nor criticism). Plus, Keith Richards plays guitar on this. How the fuck can you go wrong with Keef if someone like Waits is cracking the whip? Everett True quoted a friend on Facebook describing this album as, "the best kind of 'more of the same.' Spot on. Oh and I arbitrarily ranked it this high because the lone official video released has no emu's in it.Anti gets Tom some emu's, like they did before, and in 2012 I switch all this shit up. Got it?

4. Thee Oh Sees - Carrion Crawler/The Dream (In the Red)

Not content to release one awe inspiring psychedelic skull-fuck this year, John Dwyer and co. pumped this record out (originally conceived as two E.P.'s) about six months after the sunshine-pop filled, deliriously trippy, Castlemania and I struggled about which record would retain this spot for a bit. In fact, all I did on my Xmas shift at the hospital was bounce back and forth between the two, nodding my head uncontrollably, receiving concerned glares from my co-workers who are most certainly not accustomed to acid-flashback inspiring garage rock excellence. In the end, Carrion Crawler/The Dream wins out because the band drifts off into unexpected realms, leaving the music totally unpredictable. Plus, it's the noisier of the two. It's a fantastic record and it might be their masterpiece.

3. P.J. Harvey - Let England Shake (Vagrant)

Holy fuck, people, this record is unbelievably brilliant and incredibly difficult for me to write about without hyperbole. Bottom line, Polly Jean is still on the minimalist kick and along with Mick Harvey and John Parish she has crafted a wicked political album that is probably the most haunting and acerbic (well, lyrically at least) of her career. You just can't shake some of the images she splashes across your brain. Let England Shake is the most pleasurable musical punch to the balls you'd ever like to receive. She truly is the Patti Smith of her generation.

2. Mind Spiders - S/T (Dirtnap)

This is another record I was shocked (to almost violent rage) that didn't make it on almost ANY top 10 list. Are you fucking kidding me? Mark Ryan (of the amazing, criminally underrated, Marked Men) pumps out an amazing garage-pop album and just because it's released in January and not blown by the blogosphere like Bon Iver or whatever other horseshit was stylistically calculated to appease lazy music writers searching for a quick write up, this rad piece of wax gets relegated to the metaphorical dustbin? Fuck that noise. The Marked Men were, from the get go, one of the best bands on the planet and Ryan has carried that tradition on while managing to get weird at times while maintaining their obsession for 60's pop. If you don't see hope for the future of pop music in this band then Van Gogh yourself...twice!

1. Fucked Up - David Comes to Life (Matador)

If this is the end of Fucked Up, then they've gone out on an incredibly high note. Few bands can successfully do the concept album and when you throw in hardcore punk bands to the mix the odds get exponentially lower. However, these cats managed to magnificently pull it off, plotting the beats of their "rock opera" in a Toronto food court while retooling the music to coincide with it. Alongside the album, they released singles coloring the fictional town the story takes place in that run the gamut from the could have been on a KBD comp, "My Old Man's a Ginger" to the dreamy 90's alt-rock on, "Light Rain" or even the garage-pop on, "It's Hard to Be a Dad".

But, what is first and foremost here is the music on the album itself. I've been a total fanboy for Fucked Up ever since I heard Epics in Minutes. I've been thrilled to see the band progress beyond the second coming of Black Flag label that was thrust upon them, deservedly so, earlier in their career. Mike Haliecheck, the architect of this group's brilliant brand of sonic assault, deserves much of the credit for the records' success but it's frontman Damien Abraham's ripped-throat snarl that ferociously delivers the many emotional gut punches perfectly placed throughout the record. And despite the incredibly high bar this records sets for Fucked Up, I'm sure whatever it is they unleash upon us next will be at the very least, on par with David Comes to Life.

EP of the Year - Tie

Future of the Left - Polymers are Forever (Xtra Mile)

So, they dropped the bassist that has been with Andy Falkous since mclusky and added a second guitarist and yet, the proper question is, how fucking more awesome could this band get? Waaaaay more rad, folks.

Trash Talk - Awake (True Panther)

If Cerebral Ballzy weren't so drunk (not a complaint) and more into metal.