And here we go…
Fucked Up – Grass Can Move Stones Part 1: Year of The Goat (Tankcrimes) – Year Of The Goat? Now these are two seriously epic pieces, two “thoroughly composed operatic suites of music”, two pieces of music and an album that clocks in at a couple of minutes short of an hour, this surely is the year of the maximalist; “Nearly twenty years after its humble beginning, the journey of Fucked Up’s ever-evolving Zodiac series begins its towering conclusion with the announcement of Grass Can Move Stones, a monumental ten-part finale set to a meticulously crafted text beginning with the album Year Of The Goat, set for physical release on December 12th”. Some of this is brilliantly progressive as in properly proper prog as flip epic prog rock (on steroids) without the band ever forgetting who they are or where they have come from –
“We are excited to announce Grass Can Move Stones, the ten part finale to our twenty-year Zodiac album cycle. Join us over the next year as we release the Year Of The Goat LP, the Year Of The Monkey 2xLP, and the Year Of The Rooster 2xLP in instalments, one story spread over almost five hours of music, that dives back into the characters, narratives, and music from all our previous zodiac records, told by dozens of characters and special guests. Sides will be released (almost) monthly on Bandcamp, leading up to the finale side in October 2026, the twenty-year anniversary of the first zodiac album, Year Of The Dog. Vinyl will hit stores through this year, so stay tuned.”
So if we have this right, and it is as complicated as some tale from some topographic ocean or other, if we have it right then some four-and-a-half-years on from their last entry Year Of The Horse, Grass Can Move Stones will encompass the final three entries into the series – Goat, Monkey, and Rooster – telling one connected story over three albums, an almost five-hour musical voyage through their varied styles and influences, that will revisit and recontextualise elements from the previous nine zodiac entries in ingenious and limitlessly imaginative ways.
No I must confess, as much as we got swept up in their early work, positive reviews of both records and gigs, radio play 9where we had to take care with the band’s name) and such, we’ve not really kept tabs on what F’d Up have been doing in more recent times so the brilliance of this album and these two epic pieces have kind of caught us somewhat off guard! The Canadians were always good, this is far more than we were expecting though, this is massively ambitious and right now as we head back into the first four minutes of the first track yet again, it already sounding like something of a triumph – we’re only five minutes into the twenty-eight that make up opening piece Long Ago Gardens and we could already point out a thousand reference points, from that almost trumpeted guitar call to jump on board, to the first swipe of the vocals and those multiple voices sharing so much. Maximalism indeed.
“Grass Can Move Stones tells the story of Monkey and Good Goat, two young friends who embark on a journey of self-discovery, encountering gods, magical creatures, and dangers along the way, loosely following the narrative of the fundamental Journey to the West, written in the 16th century by Wu Cheng’en. The story also charts the career of the band, whose search for a musical home has led them through a varied and complex discography over their twenty-five years as a band. As a text, the lyrics which make up the tale of Grass Can Move Stones are an enormous lattice work of philosophy, literature, and benevolent self-mythology taking the reader through the life and times of Fucked Up via an expansive, fantastical open-world of dream like canyons, meadows, clifftops, and lakes; hellish encounters with enormous beasts, and uplifting moments of reverence and humility”
And yes is it is really canyons and clifftops, sky-touching bits, encounters with beasts and other large scale things, some of it is almost operatic in a hard rock way (no almost about it), and not that it matters and not that it needs to but where the hell does this fit? This is a massive sounding album, this is out there way beyond most prog rock concept albums, this is laced with giant slabs of story-telling metal that are never obvious enough to be mere metal – and say good bye to everything you’ve ever known, or they’ve ever know, embrace the creature that they’ve become, It is a lattice, it is a rich tapestry, it is maximalist and yes, more is more and that bit sounds like twin guitar Thin Lizzy taking on both Manowar and Yes at the same time and the different voices and the layers of the different vocalists. it all add up to so so much and of course it sounds nothing like Manowar fighting Yes (oh yes it damn well does!!). We do keep hearing different things, and wow, that’s a good bit and that little bit there sounded like later Beatles messing with Dead Kennedys, a preposterous suggestion I know but there it is, I am making it and that is what we’re dealing with here, preposterous. It does keep changing, shape shifting, it is never still and none of our references to other bands are ever that obvious, this is epic operatic rock that doesn’t really sound like anyone else and we are once again trying to dance around the architecture and can you hear me? Hang on, scrub all that, they sound like the mighty musical beast that is Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, yes, that good! That bit there really is Angle of Repose…
The press release talks of this as “Fucked Up’s most ambitious work to date, a cinematic gesture of sound which relies not on the standard practice of “genre-pushing” or traditional mimicry, but developing a musical language within familiar sounds that lives exclusively in the narrative universe of this great story. Central to the sound, though, is the always colossal weight of the five original members of the band firing in tandem to produce big music in new ways” the press release this is big music delivered in new ways, this is proper progressive ambition, this is proper progressive rock in every sense, this is the ambition we want. I’m exhausted and that was only track one…
Does the start of the second piece sounds like Curved Air with that voice and that very 70s sounding keyboard embedded in there somewhere and what is that coming over the hill as big as a mountain and they have no horns and they have no tails and they don’t even know of our existence, and of course once again nothing like Curved Air (yes it is!)
“Compositionally, Grass Can Move Stones is ambitious in its scale and in its execution. Goat, Monkey, and Rooster are thoroughly composed operatic suites of music which develop their thematics alongside the text and action of the story while cataloguing and reimagining twenty years of musical material from the existing Zodiac releases. The music mirrors the words and the words mirror the music.
Tuka Mohammed (featured on Year Of The Horse) returns to centre stage with Fucked Up, voicing “Good Goat” throughout Grass Can Move Stones. She and Damian Abraham (the voice of Monkey) share the duty of making this journey on our behalf so we can gaze into the world in which the band, former guest vocalists from Year Of The Pig, Ox, Tiger, Hare, Snake, and entirely new voices will fill out the cast of characters. Goat will feature Jennifer Castle, Tamara Lindeman (The Weather Station), and Dwid Hellion (Integrity) as its central guests “
Oh, what can we say here, this is epic, this is more than epic! This is well beyond any need of genre, this is ambitiously of its own, wow that’s another good bit, they’re all good bits, it never lets up in terms of good bits, it is one whole good bit and an album that transcends convention, that touches on may things at the same times, that does indeed go to the ends of the earth, that remains very very listenable and never too extreme, always challenging, never in that extreme metal sense though and never up itself, never imposing in that look at how clever we are kind of way, this is maximalist prog rock! This is excellent… (sw)
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Good thing we haven’t put out our end of the year album lists yet, always best to wait until the year actually ends, why do they all go so early?
ORGAN: Our best 43 albums of a very musically busy 2023. Who did we rate?
THE ORGAN 