An Album you should own if you don’t already…..According to Tali Williams from Dial
Refused – Shape of Punk to Come
There is a great story behind the strength of this album’s place in my record collection.
I was 14 and had recently become acquainted with punk rock, after years of Soundgarden, Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails. Punk music was new and fresh and straightforward. The lyrics introduced me to socio-political issues and asked me to challenge the foundations and constructs of my world on a very basic level. NOFX, Dead Kennedy’s and Propagandhi were my bands of choice.
At my local Hutt record store “Music Options”, I happened to chance upon an album that claimed to be ‘the shape of punk to come’ by a Swedish band called Refused. Somewhat dubious, I took the CD around to my friend’s house and pushed play, 8 hours later, I kid you not, that CD was still on repeat. My mind was perplexed, my body was flailing and my punk rock confines had been shattered to the ground.
Refused had single-handedly turned my music world upside down.
While holding down a damn fine hardcore sound, they had infused elements of jazz, punk, blues, techno and classical, and still somehow the album was seamless. Vocals ranged from soft delicate ‘Swedlish’ to from-the-guts screaming. The lyrics read like history prose, inspired largely by May 1968 uprisings in France. So intriguing were they, I spent the next few years researching the theories and ideas behind the uprisings to almost obsessive proportions, quoting Guy Debord and Angelo Quattrochi ad nauseum.
It was the next level in punk; it was so confusing yet so powerful. Even today I play this album when I truly wish to rock out, like the type of rock out where you’re singing into a hair brush and shaking it like it was 1997 all over again.
On a side note – I had the absolute privilege of meeting Refused vocalist Dennis Lyxen last year when he came over with his new band International Noise Conspiracy – actually I have nothing else to say on that , I’m just so stoked I met him.
