The Shape Of Punk To Come

Album Summary

This album has been submitted by a user and is not included in any edition of the book.

The Shape of Punk to Come: A Chimerical Bombination in 12 Bursts, often shortened to The Shape of Punk to Come, is the third album by Swedish hardcore punk band Refused, released on 27 October 1998 through Burning Heart Records. The album continues the band's evolution from strictly Punk to more experimental influences, begun on their previous album, Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent. The album received mixed reviews from critics and fans alike upon release, and the band would break up only a few months after the album's release. However, since then, The Shape of Punk to Come has found an audience for the band and largely contributed to their posthumous fame, as well as inspiring many later artists in a wide range of genres. Kerrang! magazine listed The Shape of Punk to Come at #13 on their 50 Most Influential Albums of All Time list in 2003. The album has been described musically as post-hardcore, and hardcore punk, with elements of jazz, punk rock, electronica, post-rock, ambient, and heavy metal. The album marked a sharp and conscious departure from Refused's earlier work. The philosophy of the album, expounded in the ample liner notes and encapsulated in the song "New Noise", was that punk and hardcore music could not be anti-establishment by continuing to package revolutionary lyrics in sounds which had been increasingly co-opted into the mainstream. The sound of the record challenged existing punk sensibilities; it can be seen as "punk" at a fundamental level and includes experimental combinations of post-hardcore, post-punk, techno, and jazz sounds. The album also includes "political interludes" between some songs. The use of more technological sounds or drum and bass music, particularly on The New Noise Theology E.P. which followed the album, is a tactic that various members of Refused have credited to the influence of Philadelphia punk band Ink & Dagger.