Thursday, November 19, 2009

Going Dutch: F.U.B.A.R.

F.U.B.A.R.

Justification of Criminal Behaviour

Bones Brigade

2005

F.U.B.A.R. sound like pissed off (pissed on?) hornets clanging about in a soup pot while Scott Carlson rehearses in the garage next door. More brutal and direct than their countrymen, F.U.B.A.R. blast like a grindcore Man is the Bastard on 2005 album Justification of Criminal Behaviour. Prominent power violence influences and subterranean bass tones are the bulwark to F.U.B.A.R.’s sound on songs like “Behavior” and “Disappear.”

For all their Neanderthal proclivities, these Lascaux cavemen are also capable of staggering moments of beauty and clarity. The triumphant punk contours of “Buy This” mold themselves to a chassis of Converge-style stretch, particularly the You Fail Me-era Jacob Bannon yowling. Not every experiment is as successful thought. “Fucked Up Beyond 7C” is the kind of electronic pounding synth drone beat doom J. Randall stuffs around ANb songs. Seemingly reinterpreting a line from “Hate Filled Screens,” it pretty much brings what you’d expected for some studio frippery tacked on to the end of an album (read: nothing).

Easily ignored misstep aside, the bulk of Justification of Criminal Behaviour pitches to F.U.B.A.R.’s punk wheelhouse. A standout tune like “The National Fear Campaign 2004” hits all the classic punk and grind notes, ticking off the boxes next to driving, ragged guitars, howled vocal phrasings and slamming drum breaks. They’ve shared vinyl with Catheter (and are just as split-happy), which is actually a fairly good comparison point – a more power violence-fueled Preamble to Oblivion. Cliched but true: brutal.

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