Album review: F Up, 'David Comes to Life'
Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 4)
F Up (a shorthand version of the band’s explicit name) is almost ridiculously prolific. Since forming a decade ago, the Toronto sextet has released more than 50 singles, EPs and mixtapes, plus three studio albums. The latest, “David Comes to Life” (Matador), provides an epic capper to that era: a four-part, 18-song, 78-minute rock opera.
Once a hardcore punk band with its allegiance to speed, volume and violence, F Up is now a band that embraces grand, anthemic arrangements that at times evoke the drama of the Who, the reverbing guitars of U2, even the Broadway-sized ambitions of the latter-day Green Day. Not that “David Comes to Life” sounds anything like a Broadway hit-to-be.
Damian “Pink Eyes” Abraham isn’t a varied or expressive enough singer to carry a five-character narrative about a factory worker who falls in love, loses his partner in a violent death, struggles to unravel why, and ultimately is redeemed. But he gets by on sheer will, barging through these arrangements like a rogue rhino, his gruff bellow balanced by the occasional female backing vocal. The band layers on the instruments and plays with dynamics; for the guitar playing alone --- not the solo virtuosity so much as the intricate interplay, shifting textures and counterpoint melodies – “David Comes to Life” is an achievement. In “Turn the Season,” “Ship of Fools” and “Life in Paper,” the guitars suggest a torrent busting through a dam, sweeping away all in its path. It’s an exhilarating, engulfing sound that might’ve been better served by a more concise album. But then F Up never has been much for holding itself back.
greg@gregkot.com