Fugazi - Red Medicine

So yeah, as stated in this blog's first entry, I'm really just going to write about new stuff I'm listening to. Plus, thinking of more lists would probably get really old after a while! The first album I'll be talking about is:


It took me almost six years, but as soon as I bought Red Medicine, I completed my collection of Fugazi's full length albums (I'm counting 13 Songs as a full length, rather than a compilation album of sorts). It all started around Christmas time of ninth grade. My friends and I bought each other whatever used CDs we could find at the CD/Game Exchange in Norwood, OH. Along with 13 Songs, my friend Aaron bought me a used copy of The Ataris' Anywhere But Here. Strange bedfellows, indeed.

Needless to say, although I harbor no ill will towards Kris Roe and company, Fugazi was the band that stuck around in my mind and playlists. Joe Lally's reggae/dub inspired bass lines continually blew my mind, and the vocal interplay between Ian MacKaye and Guy Picciotto was always perfect in my mind. There was MacKaye, the angry one, and Picciotto, the wispy, flamboyant, desperate one. A band breakdown can not be complete without mentioning Brendan Canty, one of the most versatile drummers I've heard.

Red Medicine, Fugazi's fifth album, really represents a huge turning point for the band. Things get a bit looser, and a bit stranger. Check the insane cackling at the beginning of "Birthday Pony," or Ian Mackaye really letting loose vocally on "Bed For The Scraping." Also, while Fugazi always did a great job of writing tense, quieter songs (such as "Suggestion" on 13 Songs, whose ending scared the living shit out of me the first time I heard it), the songs of that variety on this album truly forshadow the peak they would reach writing similar songs on their final album, The Argument.

Now that I think of it, I really think The Argument is the most similar to Red Medicine. The only difference is age. It's very apparent that it's a much younger band that wrote and performed Red Medicine, due to the looseness and eager experimentation.

Coming off of In On The Kill Taker, the album that preceeded this one, saw Fugazi dulling the sharp edges that made that album so caustic. If Kill Taker was a punch directly in the face, Red Medicine is the album that slowly stabs you while you're sleeping. It's raw, refined, dirty, angry, quiet, and manic all at once somehow. After only a few listens, it's already become one of my favorite albums by this sadly "on hiatus" band. I refuse to believe they'll stay quiet forever.

-Erik