No parent ever wishes that their child would grow up to be a
hardcore punk.Thankfully nature
has conspired to cure most of us of our desire to listen to or play this type of
music by the time we're able to vote.The hardcore scene is the briefest of pit stops on the way to jail, or
law school (or both), which is just enough time to learn a few three-chord
progressions, release a 7", and call it a day.
What happens, then, when a hardcore band comes along with
the staying power and notoriety to make a few modest inroads on a more
mainstream audience?If you're
Fucked Up, you smush all those seven-inches together into one ungainly
compilation, toss it at the ‘normals’, and see what sticks.Enter: Couple Tracks: Singles
2002-2009.
Ungainliness, however, is the downfall of all compilation
records.So it's best to enjoy Couple
Tracks for what it is: ‘Hardcore for
Dummies’.Fucked Up does a good
job of chronicling the possibilities of the hardcore format to show how much
diversity can be produced within fairly strict guidelines."Triumph of Life" begins with a Krautrock
instrumental."Anorak City" rides
the wave of surf rock with Ramones-overtones."David Comes to Life (Daytrotter Version)" trips out on
psychedelic garage rock.And the
list goes on.
And on and on.Clocking
in at over an hour, Couple Tracks is
more hardcore punk than most can handle in one sitting.Without the excitement of the live show
or the satisfaction of holding an obscure vinyl release in your hands, Fucked
Up loses some of their allure.It's
nice though to know that all those 7" records can finally be found in one place.Digging through stacks of vinyl in a
greasy record shop is fun, but one compilation is a wiser fiscal option for the
gutter punks among us who barely have enough cash to underwrite our meth and
EZ-cheese budget.
On his fifth album, folkster Josh Ritter offers up a big slice of Americana with a wide variety of tracks that stylistically spans several decades. 
More...
