Influential Swedish post-hardcore crew Refused have announced their intention to reform for live shows this summer. In a statement on their website, they have announced that they are due to play at Coachella Festival (alongside a newly reformed At The Drive-In) and Gothenburg’s Way Out West festival from the 9th-11th August.
In a statement on their website, the band announce: " It’s been a motley 14 years since our band came apart. We’ve all kept busy in our respective endeavors but we’ve all remained friends and kept in touch. There have been offers, and lots of jokes about these offers. We’ve sort of looked down from our high horses and made fun of people who’ve just wanted to share the psychopathic intensity that we would deliver on a nightly basis in our post-pubescent prime. A reunion has just seemed irrelevant to us. Too much other shit to do."
But lately, members have stopped being as busy as they were, and after Coachella got in touch they decided to give it another go. "We never did The Shape Of Punk To Come justice back when it came out, too tangled up in petty internal bickering to really focus on the job. And suddenly there’s this possibility to do it like it was intended. We wanna do it over, do it right. For the people who’ve kept the music alive through the years, but also for our own sakes."
The Shape Of Punk To Come was arguably one of the most influential albums on the last decade’s punk/hardcore landscape, dragging in elements of jazz, dub and electronica alongside the more riff-based approach of their earlier records. They split due to tension within the band not long after its release, something documented in the recent film Refused Are Fucking Dead. Frontman Dennis Lyxzen went on to make several albums with The (International) Noise Conspiracy, and the remaining members formed TEXT and played in several other bands. There have been rumours of a reunion for quite some time, but nothing official has surfaced until now.
In the wake of At The Drive-In’s announced reformation yesterday, that makes them the second seminal punk/post-hardcore band to announce their reformation in the space of two days. It’s probably a bit much to hope that Botch put aside their differences and and make it a third tomorrow.
