Naming an album in a way which is intended to identify it as a blueprint for the future of a genre is a pretty ambitious idea, but actually crafting an album justifying the name and going on to prove to be of the highest influence to a smattering of sub-genres and bands in the years after its release is even more miraculous. Whether Refused simply intended to joke around with the title of Ornette Coleman’s “The Shape Of Jazz To Come” in naming their final gift to the punk underworld or actually anticipated it to be a revolutionary recording of late 90s punk isn’t obvious, but “The Shape Of Punk To Come” nonetheless sits as arguably the greatest Swedish album of all time, quite the achievement when juxtaposed with the likes of Opeth, Cult Of Luna, Katatonia and, erm, ABBA.

In actual fact it wasn’t punk in general that benefited directly from the record, but post-hardcore, a genre that after At The Drive-In’s turn of the century classic “Relationship Of Command” was being viewed retroactively as harnessing the strength, intensity and even marketability of a second Nirvana, and which went on to, in its various offshoots, not manage that but still become essentially an MTV staple in the remainder of the 2000s. A large debt is owed to Refused, who re-wrote the rulebook with this one. Funnily enough, the album isn’t quite as groundbreaking in terms of diversity as I have seen it trumpeted as being. A jazzy interlude on “The Deadly Rhythm” does not serve to introduce jazz to a punk album in some sort of never-before-seen move, nor is the inclusion of acoustic guitar earth-shattering. It’s not the genuine breakthrough that Hüsker Dü’s punk opera “Zen Arcade” was when it proved that punk could also be progressive some 14 years earlier.

The sound of the album IS groundbreaking though. The unbridled anger, the buzzsaw riffs that cut to and then through the bone and the nervy atmospheric building blocks around which tracks like “Refused Are Fuckin Dead” and the massive “Tannhäuser/Derivè” are built all add up to a highly authentic brand of hardcore punk, while the album’s use of electronics, though sometimes coming off as an afterthought, did do its best to break down a wall. If “The Deadly Rhythm” does prove anything it’s that there is a deadly rhythm section at work. The album’s finest moments come in the groove-laden riff explosions of the title track and the crunching “New Noise,” a dizzying guitar meltdown that builds to glorious, post-metal-like breakdowns that Converge would make an exclamation point on their own hardcore, a little before ‘post-metal’ was even truly a relevant term. Opening track “Worms Of The Senses/Faculties Of The Skull” is a perfect mission statement, its towering aural machinery twinned in perfect harmony with alternative guitar lines of a bleached cleanliness and one of the all-time great opening lyrics; “I’ve got a bone to pick with capitalism, and a few to break.”

At the risk of offending an entire nation, there’s an incredibly Swedish self-confidence to Refused setting out to change a genre and using the sound they have discovered to achieve that with as a vehicle to attack an entire irresistible school of social and economic thought. The lack of argument comes in the fact that they somehow do exactly what they planned, and for better and for worse in terms of everything that followed, the record that birthed all of that makes it all worth it.

by Michael

There’s a popular myth about music of the 21st century that claims it has nothing on that of the final years of the 20th. Take a look around and this lie is easy to find, populating message boards for all to see. Of course, to spread this idea is to contribute to a theory which ignores the talents of an actually vast amount of individuals and bands. However, it is similarly undeniable that much of this music lies underground, waiting to be discovered. That has never been as true as with the success story that is the rise to strictly contained glory of Steve Goodman, better known as Kode9, and his young, thriving London label Hyperdub.

Until the inevitability of time unearths the secrets of Hyperdub, it is a label with a reputation that glows blinding light, an alchemic source of the best dub-based music heard on the planet in recent years and one which is still shrouded in a certain mystery. It is the sort of story in the vein of doomed iconic Manchester label Factory Records that one can see as the fodder of a future indie movie documenting the legends of those at its helm and that of the surrounding dubstep movement, a twin compliment and insult to its precious standing. Before the days of even Burial, its godfather was Kode9, and his stunning collaboration with dub poet The Spaceape, “Memories Of The Future,” remains an overlooked highlight, a buried beacon of modern music.

Its title is incredibly apt for a release that may be immeasurably ahead of its time, and which is almost impossible to define by either its obvious dub and garage influences or its unsettling, paranoid futurism, creating a retro-futuristic maelstrom of dizziness-inducing bass, steely electronics and drug-like atmosphere. Although the music is frequently minimalist to an almost shocking extent, the appeal is bolstered wonderfully by The Spaceape, his deep delivery proving absolutely perfect as it trickles through the sparse audio to fondle the eardrums with its abstractly phrased tales of the complex workings of societal evils and city darkness. In keeping with the whole vibe of the album, however, there’s a bubbling undercurrent of recognition, an inexplicable déjà vu to the words caressing your thoughts.

The album is daring enough to offer up “Sine,” a difficult, beatless rework of “Sign o’ The Times” by Prince, a statement that has a lot more than my words can convey to say about the ethereal nature of dubstep at large. At times the album is far more expansive than I’ve given it credit for so far, with the pacy “Portal” building to woozy sonic tornadoes while “Curious” combines a far-away hook, almost sounding caught on the wind, with electro bleeps that reflect the relentless, steady viral outbreak of the genre as depicted on Hyperdub’s recent 5 compilation, released to celebrate the label’s fifth birthday. There is certainly something sinister about the way dupstep sounds, but only as sinister as the city it holds up a mirror to. “Memories Of The Future” frequently sounds like the music that operates while the people sleep, and at its other points sounds like a dawn calling to the new day after another night of writing music’s future, such is the cool breeziness of the way the compositions float, like early morning air, and the progression promised by The Spaceape’s words.

Countless films, movies and books have attempted to put across the struggle and despair of urban life, and it’s a concept that has cropped up in a number of write-ups I have previously contributed. One quote that comes to mind is from Detective Somerset at the end of Se7en, a masterful portrayal of the utter lack of hope for the metropolis. “I’ll be around,” he says, and he will for as long as crime is, despite the lack of closure he’s going to achieve in sticking. It is secretly his sustenance, and he can never properly confront that. “Memories Of The Future” and the rest of Hyperdub’s output will be around, buried under months and years of the tacky pop rewrites, and bloated and creatively infertile alt-rock people mistakenly look to for validation that music is alive. Music is certainly alive, it just remains to be seen whether the way dubstep channels the difficulty of dark, modern life into its spider’s web of a vibrant and vital musical movement will ever meet a society that is even remotely ready to adjust to the standards of something borne out of both a struggle and the desire to end it.

by Michael