"They told me that the classics never go out of style but they do, they do."
"Somehow baby I never thought that we'd do too."
There was a mythic element to the band Refused and their 1998 album The Shape of Punk to Come.
They were a nobody punk band from Sweden, who after seven years of by-the-numbers hardcore
dropped a perfect statement of an album before disappearing
supposedly never to play again.
That album fused together standard hardcore punk
with elements of techno, jazz and folk to create some refreshingly new music,
influencing a whole generation of bands in their wake.
The mystery surrounding this enigmatic band was crushed slightly
when in 2012 the band went back on their word
and returned to a world that had finally caught up with their invention.
But what was the album really about? Why did the band break up?
And did The Shape of Punk to Come really shape what punk became?
Starting in 1991 Refused were different from other hardcore bands.
Their first album This Just Might Be The Truth and extensive touring
got them enough attention to sign to Victory Records in the US.
Their second album Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent had the metalcore sound of their labelmates
but with a fiercely political bend.
They presented as a vegan straightedge anarchist band.
Those that liked their music, disliked their politics.
Those that agreed with them politically were put off by their sound.
Unlike the standard-issue jeans and shaved heads sported by the majority of hardcore bands,
the band were wearing beatnik-style clothing: skinny jeans and dyed black mop top hair.
Said former Million Dead frontman Frank Turner in 2018:
As much as people want to believe there were signs beforehand that Refused would be "an important band",
their next album pretty much came out of nowhere.
The title alone is a statement of where the band were at the time of recording.
There's an arrogance there but also a barely concealed aggression.
Few bands have titled their records so brazenly.
Like how The Replacements named their third album Let It Be because fuck the Beatles
or how the Manic Street Preachers named their third album The Holy Bible because fuck God.
While a dismissal and burning of the old guard,
it was also a statement of intent for everything that would follow:
"The Shape of Punk to Come"
About the title frontman Dennis Lyxzén said:
The title itself is referenced Ornette Coleman album The Shape of Jazz to Come
which the band encountered via the Nation of Ulysses track of the same name.
This ties into the music, this borrowing of genre elements from other places
and working them into the overall structures of their songs.
Other examples from elsewhere include in "New Noise"
where they use a sample Marlon Brando from Apocalypse Now in the breakdown:
While the spoken word section at the beginning of Protest Song 68
is taken from the opening of the Henry Miller novel, Tropic of Cancer.
Even the record sleeve design is recycled from New Jersey post-hardcore band Rye Coalition
and their 7-inch Teenage Dance Session,
itself a ripoff of a 1954 album with the same title by Dan Terry.
The album's central theme is presented in the lone single "New Noise":
if one's revolutionary message is to be heard, the music itself must be revolutionary.
By the late 90s the incendiary punk rock of the Sex Pistols, Clash and Dead Kennedys
had been co-opted by mainstream focused bands like Green Day and blink-182,
bands that were making a fortune off punk aesthetic without saying anything of note.
So if Punk had become pop then to get real Punk ideas across they needed to scream to be heard
So Refused tossed out the three-chorded tunes, wrote songs that are longer than three minutes
and with riffs that weren't fixed to a 4/4 double-time.
While they were at it, they added bits and pieces from elsewhere, defiantly not Punk genres:
It refreshed the idea of what punk could be, as Lyxzén screams in "New Noise":
And it's exactly that.
The song was a refreshing burst of pure adrenaline,
Few moments in music since have hit as hard as when Lyxzén asks very nicely whether he can scream:
The band have admitted that that crunch of riffs is them purposely trying to outdo
former Victory Records label mates Snapcase.
This message of mainstream versus counterculture runs throughout the record.
"Liberation Frequency" demands over and over:
The whole album flows like a broadcast from a pirate radio station,
filled with musical interludes and static distortion:
This makes the genre fuckery make all the more sense,
like the techno beats are just coming in from a different station slightly off the dial.
If it were all just genre smashing flash, the album would come off as empty
but the fact that that sound was all in aid of their greater manifesto is what makes the album work.
The idea that music can revolutionize.
That some riffs, beats and choice words can overthrow whatever capitalism has to offer
if they're utilized in the correct way.
This manifesto is detailed in the album's liner notes.
Each song getting a paragraph full of what is wrong with the status quo and how it needs to be changed.
This is taken from section for "New Noise":
As if to preempt the reader the text ends with the line:
"This manifesto is very much for real."
Given the fact that ...Shape... has a track called "Refused are Fuckin' Dead"
it seems inevitable that Refused were gonna burn out soon after.
Guitarist Kristofer Steen said to Vice in 2015:
Lyxzén disputes this was the case but it was evident at the time of recording
that communication channels between the band had broken down.
Simply put, there was a difference in what the band meant for the different members of Refused.
For Lyxzén, it was about the Politik, the Praxis, the idea that music can be the revolution
and that it alone can smash capitalism.
For the rest of the band it wasn't about that, it was more about the music.
Due to this it's a miracle that the record's music and voice aligns so well thematically.
Lyxzén recalls a time he got into a fight with the rest of the band
because he thought some of the newer songs weren't that great,
which ended with drummer David Sandström screaming in his face
that he just didn't understand jazz musician Charlie Parker.
Steen said in 2002:
In the aftermath of recording ...Shape... in late 1997 Refused went on a disappointing European tour.
This included a date at the less than half-full Red Eye in London, performing to only 30 people.
This performance was halted after five songs due to Lyxzén colliding mid-song
with bassist Ulf Nybérg's headstock, leaving blood pissing out of his forehead.
He recalls of the tour:
Refused's last shows were in the U.S. in late 1998,
having been scheduled to play several days touring with the Washington DC post-hardcore band, Frodus.
Their drummer Jason Hamacher remembers:
Their tour was cancelled halfway through after a rough internal fight
after a show in Atlanta, Georgia on the 26th of September
after which they've decided that the band will play one more show and then call it quits.
Their last show was in their suburban basement in Harrisonburg, Virginia on the 6th October.
Punks in the know had heard this might be Refused's last ever show
so 45 people were packed into this small room.
The crowd barely able to move, Refused right up on the floor next to them.
They managed three full songs before the police came to shut down the show.
The band launched into what they assumed was the last song they'd ever play:
fan-favorite "Rather Be Dead."
The plug was pulled literally less than a minute into the song,
the crowd left chanting the song's end refrain: "Rather be alive,"
as cops came in to break things up as well as arrest various attendees and band members.
And that was the end of Refused.
Lyxzén wrote one final manifesto a strongly worded letter sent directly to the press
entitled "refused are fucking dead."
The text includes the line:
The Shape of Punk to Come would be released posthumously less than three weeks later.
On its year of release The Shape of Punk to Come only sold 1400 copies in the US.
At the time no one cared.
Lyxzén said to Kerrang! in 2015:
It's now sold over 180,000 copies making it one of the best-selling hardcore punk records of all time
and it has influenced a whole generation of bands.
Kerrang! named it the 13th most influential album of all time in 2003.
And since then it's only increased in stature.
From 1999 to 2012, it seemed that every band took something from Refused for their own.
Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park said in 2018:
"I don't think there would be a Linkin Park without Refused.
"Like the sound of the guitars and the drums, like the live band sound of this album,
"was one of the things that when we were recording and when we were mixing
"I remembered like A-Bing Hybrid Theory to this album
"and being like it means to have as much energy as this album does."
Paramore's Hayley Williams noted this influence on the chorus of "Born For This":
the line taken from "Liberation Frequency":
Frank Turner was also inspired by the band so much so that he named his first band
after a line from "The Apollo Programme was a Hoax":
Much of post-hardcore, emo and pop punk has stated Refused
and The Shape of Punk to Come as important to their style
whether it be the techno-hardcore mashup of Enter Shikari
or twists and turns of La Dispute
or making the move from hardcore punk to something more nuanced as on Glassjaw's Worship and Tribute
as well as AFI's jump from Black Sails in the Sunset to Sing the Sorrow.
The latter's Davey Havok said in 2003:
Tom Morello admitted in 2003 that when Zack de la Rocha left Rage Against The Machine in 2000
he discussed with producer Rick Rubin about the possibility
of getting Dennis Lyxzén as a replacement vocalist.
Of late there has been a backlash against ...Shape... as an influential record
claiming that the album isn't as coherent as its reputation declared
or that its best moves were taken from Nation of Ulysses, Born Against and Rye Coalition.
One of the many criticisms of the band is Refused are this anti-Capitalist entity
with ideas about revolution and overthrowing the powers that be,
Yet you can hear "New Noise" in the film Crank:
a Tony Hawk game:
and the Doom 2016 trailer.
What happened to their ideals?
Lyxzén tried to explain:
Sometimes the criticism is simply having influenced the wrong bands.
For example no one needs to hear Crazytown cover "New Noise":
But I guess the classics do sometimes go out of style.
On the record sleeve of ...Shape... reads the following words:
Sure Refused could have been the band to reshape Punk in their image
and for many bands they were
but for others there were just another band, not worthy of the acclaim
but with their passion and commitment for the cause that was always going to be the case.
If you put your heart and soul on the line, if you fail you look the fool.
But you can't succeed if you don't put it all out there.
Their words back it up:
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