Snoozed till now on this ripper 12" that captures the idiosyncratic punk titans in July of 2015, which the Third Man crew put out just a few years later. Like the other Live series records that were captured from store/office performances (Melvins, Boris, Earth), the sound quality and presentation is great, a sudden and raw "live to acetate" documentation of the performance, with their set list really spanning the years. Known for their mercurial refusal to align their music with any single form or genre, Fucked Up have built up a mythos by now, even if just from a musical standpoint; aside from their noted provocations and almost performance-art level pranksterism, these cats are the only band I can think of that has successfully smooshed together a foundation of vicious old-school hardcore punk with not only some of the best guitar playing in all of "underground" music, but also a brain-bogglin' blend of all sorts of psychedelic rock / Krautrock, pop music, experimental ambitions, folk styles, orchestral sounds, even electronic dance music. Their discography is immense, and confounding. And somehow, in spite of all of this, Fucked Up turned into a huge band, known and beloved worldwide. Wild shit.

So here we have the Canadian band bangin' out a six-song set on a summer night in Nashville, Tennessee. Ripping through an assortment of tunes that range from the title tracks for Year Of The Rat, Year Of The Ox and David Comes To Life , older classics off The Chemistry Of Common Life ("Son The Father"), the Crooked Head EP ("I Hate Summer"), and the then-new "California Cold" off 2015's Year Of The Hare, one of the latest in their sprawling "Zodiac" series. Sound quality is immediate, scouring, noisy, and intense, both performance-wise and due to the recording method. It's an ass-kicking half-hour-plus. Opening with the bluesy, spaced-out psych-jam of "Rat" that explodes and merges into aggressive, circle-pit inducing hardcore, total earworm melodies soaring into night, Hawkwindian hardcore deliria, everything strafed by Damian's torched howl, on through the power-pop-meets-Oi! pummel of "David" , "Son"'s blue-collar garage HC freak-out and the ebullient anthem of "Summer", the nearly twelve-minute hypno-punk / 'gazer-pop ritual "Ox" ascending to moody motorik bliss, and at last the sheer rock and roll majesty / mastery that blasts through "California".

I can feel the audience going berserk.

One of the only bands in the world that can cite everything from Sham 69 and Hawkwind to Negative Approach and The Who as reference / influence points on their c.v., this record is the tits.