- “They say the classics never go out of style, but they do. Somehow baby, I never thought we would too.” So went the opening line from The Shape Of Punk To Come, the iconic album released in 1998 by Swedish hardcore band Refused.
Shortly after releasing that album, Refused split up. Their final offering to the world though was a breakup communique that only added to their legend.
“When every expression, no matter how radical it is, can be transformed into a commodity and be bought or sold like cheap soda, how is it then possible to take "art" seriously?” it said. It concluded with: “we will never play together again and we will never try to glorify or celebrate what was. All that we have to say has been said here or in our music/manifestos/lyrics and if that is not enough you are not likely to get it anyway. WE THEREFORE DEMAND THAT EVERY NEWSPAPER BURN ALL THEIR PHOTOS OF REFUSED so that we will no longer be tortured with memories of a time gone by and the mythmaking that single-minded and incompetent journalism offers us. Instead we need to look forward.”
So it was with conflicting emotions that fans of the band heard of their reformation for Coachella festival in 2012 and subsequent new albumin 2015. It wasn’t helped by the fact that the band who once said they wanted to be “the final nail in the coffin of the rotten cadaver that is popular music” had made an album that was a bit, you know... dull.
It’s 2019 and Refused are back with another album, War Music. It’s a record that was always likely to judged before it was heard. Not only is it to be weighed against those old albums, its very existence seems to contradict that legendary manifesto. The promotional material for War Music, though pretty standard, sits uncomfortably with those ideals – when it talks about their status as “one of the most influential artists of the early ‘00s”, or when it talks about the band receiving awards from the Swedish government and working with high profile pop producers.
It’s hard to know what to do with this kind of thing. Everyone has a right to change their mind, and as we get older it’s healthy to disagree with some of the opinions and actions of our younger selves. Obviously Refused have a right to play and record music together if they want to. But on the other hand, if we want to take seriously the band’s critique of music as just another entertainment commodity, we should see those songs (indeed the whole of Refused’s legacy) as cultural objects that extend beyond just the intellectual property of the band members.
The band now try to laugh off that communique as a stunt or a decoy, or describe their legacy as “that truth-adjacent phenomenon we call music history”. But the thing about history is that it never stays entirely in the past. Its consequences are always present, and the relationship between Refused as mythical hardcore legends and Refused as current band is one of tension. If not for their past, this album would not be being reviewed right now, they wouldn’t be touring the world. And part of that past, one that can not be simply erased, is the band’s image as political radicals who who rejected the compromises demanded by the rituals of the music industry.
So how then do we judge War Music? Do we try to view it independently of that legacy? Because if we did, we might take it as a pretty competent hardcore album. We might see its lyrics as decent attempts to inspire political action. It’s not a terrible album, in fact at times it’s pretty good. It’s certainly not the epic and powerful journey of The Shape Of Punk To Come, but then again not many records are.
As a fan of the band, I’m happy for Refused to be making music together again. They could have done it under another name and they wouldn’t have had to worry about grappling with their legacy, but the myths and icons of our past can sometimes do with being brought back to earth. As Refused said in that manifesto, what matters in music and in politics is what we are creating now, in this time and place.
But just because something is more recent doesn’t necessarily make it more relevant to our current circumstances. I know I will keep returning to Refused’s classic 90’s records for many years to come. War Music, on the other hand, I listened to a few times out of curiosity and will possibly never play again.
- Andy Paine.