Fucko – Dealing With The Weird

Boston Trio Fucko were an unknown quantity to me and to be honest I didn’t know what to expect from a band bearing that name, but it wasn’t this, and I mean that in a good way. On first listen this is something of a throwback to the early heady days of grunge. We live in an era when overproduction has become the norm and it is refreshing to hear an album like this, which has been served up in it’s raw fuzzy state. Dealing With The Weird draws obvious comparisons with L7, The Muffs, Magnapop and early Pixies due to the fuzz heavy guitars and the inherent melody present under the unrelenting distortion and thunderous drumming. That’s not to say that Fucko are stuck in the past, whilst this release undoubtably wears it’s influences on it’s sleeve they have used them as a catalyst to create their own dissonant character.

Dealing With Their Weird is Fucko‘s debut album, it was originally released in 2015 via their Bandcamp and was released earlier this year via Black Numbers. It opens with an ominous squeal of feedback before it kicks into one of the album’s stand out tracks, Best Little Something in Something, this track along with Kind Of Mean It are in my opinion the strongest tracks on the album being a glorious pair of bouncy fuzzy floorshakers. The rest of the album maintains a high standard across all thirteen tracks and avoids the pitfalls of repetition as the tempo, attack and aggression in the tracks constantly vary. This album keeps demanding your attention before all too soon it comes to an end with the glorious driving distortion of Buzz.

It’s a damn shame that Fucko will probably only get minimal exposure outside of the internet, due to their chosen name, as this is an album which deserves to heard. Dealing With The Weird is a very impressive debut and if at the end of year this album isn’t in my top 10 from 2016 I’ll be very surprised. Deal With The Weird, you won’t regret it.