Refusing to Get a Clue

Sure, we may differ on many issues, but can we all agree that there’s nothing better than a band that delivers political speeches between songs? Am I right? …Yes? …Anyone?…

Now well into middle age, Swedish punk flunkies Refused continue their dogged campaign against capitalism by signing to privately-owned-and-operated labels (Spinefarm – part of the Universal Music Group corporate conglomerate – and their partners Search & Destroy) to market and sell their latest recorded effort, War Music, out Oct. 18.

“In the present moment, we who believe in the equal distribution of wealth in an egalitarian, ecological direct democracy, we who use gender-neutral pronouns and words like solidarity, moral responsibility, intersectionality and class warfare, we who believe in the Marxist dictum, ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need’ are on our back foot, on our backs, backed up against the wall, surrounded by enemies, our movement curtailed, our rights violated,” the band avowed in a pretentiously verbose statement accompanying a press release concerning the new album, sent our way by the privately-owned publicity company hired by the band, its label and/or management company Raw Power, a subsidiary of (you guessed it) Search & Destroy, which also guides the careers of such talents as Bring Me the Horizon and Bullet For My Valentine. “It’s been clear for some time: the sun is setting on our beliefs,” Refused’s statement concludes. Let’s damn sure hope so, since they advocate atrocities such as “the total violent obliteration of the one percent.”

Did we mention that Refused reside comfortably not in China or Cuba or Laos or even some Russian-controlled territory, but in fucking Sweden?