Refused

Refused

Since 1991 · Sweden

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The Shape of Punk to Come (1998)

The Shape of Punk to Come sets out, in its title alone, to reject hardcore's own conservatism, and the album delivers on the dare: electronic samples, free-jazz saxophone, and dance rhythms folded into songs that never lose their hardcore force. "New Noise" builds from a tense, near-silent verse into one of the genre's most explosive choruses, Dennis Lyxzén's vocal alternating between a whisper and a full-throated demand. The band broke up almost immediately after the album's release, touring it only briefly. Its reputation has only grown since, turning a record largely ignored on arrival into one of hardcore's most cited genre-fusion statements.

Sleeve notes

The Shape of Punk to Come · 1998

Refused formed in Umeå, Sweden in 1991 out of the local hardcore scene, releasing a series of increasingly ambitious records before arriving at The Shape of Punk to Come (1998), an album explicitly conceived as a rejection of hardcore's stylistic conservatism. Vocalist Dennis Lyxzén's politically explicit lyrics, drawn from a background in radical left-wing organizing, gave the band's music an ideological seriousness that matched its musical ambition.

The album fused hardcore's aggression with electronic textures, free jazz interludes, and dance rhythms in a way few of their contemporaries attempted, and the band split up shortly after its release, touring the record only briefly before dissolving. Its reputation grew enormously in the years that followed, reaching a wider audience than the band had while it existed and turning The Shape of Punk to Come into one of the most cited genre-fusion records in hardcore's history — enough that Refused eventually reunited to tour on the strength of a legacy built largely in absentia.