David Comes to Life
| David Comes to Life | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Fucked Up | ||||
| Released | June 6, 2011 | |||
| Recorded | Treefort Studios Brooklyn, SMT Studio New York, 6 Nassau Studio Toronto, Central Audio Studio Toronto | |||
| Genre | Hardcore punk, punk rock, indie rock, post-hardcore, rock opera | |||
| Length | 77:47 | |||
| Label | Matador | |||
| Producer | Shane Stoneback | |||
| Fucked Up chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 86/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| The A.V. Club | A |
| Chicago Tribune |  |
| The Guardian | |
| Mojo | |
| NME | 8/10 |
| Pitchfork Media | 8.6/10 |
| Q | |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Spin | 9/10 |
David Comes to Life is the third studio album by Canadian hardcore punk band Fucked Up. It was released on June 7, 2011 in North America and June 6, 2011 elsewhere on Matador Records in CD and double LP formats. David Comes to Life is an 18 song epic in four acts. It became Fucked Up's first charting album in the United States ranking at number 83 on the Billboard 200.
The album is a rock opera set in 1970s and 1980s England. The story involves unreliable narrators and meta-narrative plot devices. Drummer Jonah Falco described the album as a love story between the title character David and a girl named Veronica.
David Comes to Life was first announced in March 2010, with guitarist Ben Cook describing the album as a musical. The album began recording in June 2010 in New York City and was finished in February 2011. The day before the album was released, the band took over Clint Roenisch Gallery in Toronto and turn it into a pop-up record shop, where they sold copies of David Comes to Life and 7" singles featuring other songs from the recording session.
The character of David Eliade had appeared in previous Fucked Up songs such as "David Comes to Life" (from Hidden World) and "David's Christmas" (a 2007 single). The reason Fucked Up made the album a rock opera was to contrast rock opera's perception as being indulgent with the rawness of hardcore punk. The music was written before the lyrics or story were written. Damian Abraham called the songs on David Comes to Life the most personal ones yet, saying "[W]e could hide behind characters and pretend that we’re talking about David and Veronica when really we’re talking about my breaking with my girlfriend or something [...] We always wrote about things we’re passionate about, but we’re always writing it in the sort of 'we', 'collective', 'us vs. humanity' type of thing. This time, it was very much like 'Here is what I am going through.' "
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