Fucking Invincible’s first full-length It’ll Get Worse Before It Gets Better spent quite a bit of time assaulting my eardrums in the second half of 2015, a beatdown in eleven minutes, spun and spun and spun again. Now, before the dust settles and the blood dries up, Fucking Invincible is back for another round, shorter than the last, but every bit as aggressive. And the beatdown continues: In the month or so since I Hate Myself And Want You To Die dropped in my lap, Fucking Invincible has again dominated my listening time.
With their family-unfriendly name taken from The Swarm’s “Fucking Invincible At 1AM,” Fucking Invincible is a Rhode Island-based hardcore “supergroup,” made up of current or former members of Dropdead, Daughters, Sweet Jesus, and others. Of those, Fucking Invincible falls closest to Dropdead — short bursts of punked-out near-grind, all inhuman tempo and throat-rending screams. So, yes, like the three Fucking Invincible releases before it, I Hate Myself is a ferocious blast of powerviolence that checks all the appropriate boxes. (“Power? Check. Violence? Check. Okay, we’re done here.”) It’s stout; it’s furious; it’s killer.
With eight songs in seven minutes, I Hate Myself is a strafing run that’s over before you know it. Still, there’s plenty of destruction packed within, from the swinging-to-blasting drive of “Cross – Uncross” to the cacophonous closing duo of “No Exit” and “Get It Wrong.” Fucking Invincible operates at two speeds – either full-on blasting or a deliberate crushing mid-tempo stomp, and either is equally effective. Vocalist Alexis Marshall screams and shrieks atop chunky punk riffs, all while drummer Ryan Pitz beats his kit well past its breaking point – this is controlled chaos, carefully timed explosions.
Fucking Invincible isn’t rewriting the rulebook – this is hardcore punk, after all, and it’s about expression and aggression, and not necessarily about innovation. But this is fast, and it’s loud, and it’s violent, and that’s all you really need.
Fucking impeccable.
