Fuck the Facts - Desire Will Rot

Pitchfork 80

If you'd walked up to even the most ardent extreme metal fan in 1987 and posed the question "How far do you think this music can go?" chances are you'd have gotten a blank stare in response. At that time, Napalm Death, Carcass, Unseen Terror, and others had significantly upped heavy metal's ante by combining thrash and death metal with hardcore, crust- and anarcho-punk at inhumanly fast tempos to create what would eventually come to be known as grindcore. This new movement represented a kind of logical endpoint beyond which it seemed impossible to push. After all, how could music get any heavier than the unremitting abrasion of Napalm Death's first two in-studio appearances on the John Peel show?

So, as much as this music shook up existing boundaries, it made sense to assume that grindcore would flame out as a novelty trend after about five years due to lack of innovation. And yet, almost three decades later, we have to marvel at the breadth of a genre that has done the opposite of stagnate. Modern acts like Cephalic Carnage, Pig Destroyer, Antigama, and many others have brought myriad new dimensions to the form, and they continue to infuse metal with a sense of limitless possibility. Among them, Fuck the Facts has become so adept at stretching grindcore's parameters that one almost detects a sense of gamesmanship in the way the Ottawa-Gatineau quintet switches styles two dozen times in a single song—often in the span of two minutes or less.

The latest Fuck the Facts offering Desire Will Rot begins, seductively enough, in fairly standard full-blast mode. But it isn't long—28 seconds, to be exact—before the band's penchant for nuance rears its head. Double-bass drum volleys, pogo-inducing "death'n'roll" crunch reminiscent of Entombed, crossover thrash riffs, powerviolence, guttural hardcore, Yngwie Malmsteen-worthy guitar solos, and jazzy off-time grooves all come to brief fruition before melting away into whatever complementary shade of metal the band chooses next.

This segmented approach has typified metal since (if not before) Death’s Chuck Schuldiner employed jazz fusion-loving members of Cynic for 1991’s death-prog classic Human, but it isn’t staggering technical agility alone that distinguishes Fuck the Facts as exceptional. The real coup here is that Desire Will Rot never gives you whiplash because it doesn’t actually contain hairpin turns. Take a moment to let that sink in: to make this music flow to this degree requires an almost supernatural instinct for cohesion. That instinct, on display in spades here, is what arguably positions Fuck the Facts at grindcore's cutting edge. This is all the more impressive considering this album was actually recorded three years ago.

Originally intended for release as the main-course companion to the 2013 EP Amer, Desire Will Rot does bear some similarities to the style and tone of Amer’s seven songs, but it leans far less in the straight-ahead melodic-metal vein the band first explored on 2008’s Disgorge Mexico. Even those who are well familiar with Amer or the FTF catalog as a whole wouldn’t immediately think to connect the two releases. Desire Will Rot was conceived and recorded just two years after Fuck the Facts solidified its current five-piece lineup in time to make the joint LP/EP set Die Miserable and Misery (both released on the same day in 2011). The recent split-LP with Fistfuck, released this past May, gives us a glimpse into where FTF might be headed in the future, but it’s easy to see why the band is pushing Desire Will Rot, easily the more expansive of the two titles, as its quote-unquote actual new album.

Desire Will Rot captures a band that spent significant time gelling and growing as a creative unit. Where Fuck the Facts started out as a quasi-solo vehicle for bandleader-guitarist-engineer Topon Das, these days every member is expected, even required, to contribute to the writing process. It’s not often that we can describe a three-minute song as "epic," but the winding twists and turns of a tune like "Solitude" suggest that a bunch of cooks can work together in the same kitchen without stepping on one another’s toes. Indeed, this five-piece incarnation marks the latest in a series of significant milestones in the band’s history, namely: the addition of frontwoman Mel Mongeon in 2002 and Mathieu Vilandré’s later switch from guitar to drums. Each of these changes has drastically increased the band’s pool of assets.

Mongeon, although she now shares vocal duties with bassist Marc Bourgon, remains one of grindcore’s most instantly-recognizable vocalists. Her lyrics hint at a sense of unease within the realm of identity that never explicitly references a worldview shaped by Quebec’s relationships with the rest of Canada and the U.S. Nevertheless, a hazy feeling of clawing for one’s place permeates this music and sets Fuck the Facts’ brand of angst apart not only from other grind acts, but also its own early work, which was characterized more by Das’ sardonic sense of humor. Not to be overlooked, Mongeon’s artwork makes the physical copy of Desire Will Rot worth owning for those who like the music enough to seek additional overtones in her sumptuous—even dazzlingly—grim, visuals.

Vilandré, meanwhile, serves as the ultimate dual-threat weapon. Ever since he moved behind the kit for 2006’s Stigmata High-Five, his precise, assertive style elevated Fuck the Facts from a dirty little underground act to upstart world-contender status. On Desire Will Rot, though, his drumming reaches a level of fluidity that’s rare even among the genre’s elite. Vilandré also contributes guitar parts, and his understanding of guitar no doubt contributes to this album’s seamlessness as Das and second guitarist Johnny Ibay’s parts spill forth in an endlessly churning outpour of riffs. By the time the album arrives at "Circle", its four-part ambient denoument, those riffs have touched on so many elements that the presence of cello, piano, and noise atmospheres hardly seems foreign or unexpected. Grindcore, as Fuck the Facts prove so ably on Desire Will Rot, can apparently accommodate any ingredients provided the artist has the imagination to support them.