Much as I like a fair bit of hardcore, there’s a slightly dim earnestness surrounding some contemporary bands on the scene (like the musically quite interesting Gallows, I suppose) that can sometimes be irritating. Obviously I can sympathise with the ideology, but I guess I’ve reached a point in life where I don’t need to be lectured on the multifarious iniquities of the music business - or the iniquities of life, come to that - in such artless terms. Fucked Up, though, are a grand exception. Their fiercely underground stance (though they have just signed to Matador) never seems quite so sanctimonious and rote as others, and they seem genuinely, esoterically smart – not just anxious to prove that, contrary to crude punk stereotypes, they’ve read a book or two. They’re also, I think, the first hardcore band I’ve come across in a long time – since the ‘90s heyday of post-hardcore, maybe (though my knowledge of this stuff is sketchy at best, to be honest), who really stretch the music. Notoriously, their “Year Of The Pig” single from last year was an 18-minute, semi-motorik chunder that somehow managed to sustain the fireball indignation of a sub-two minute SST single from the ‘80s. Their last album, 2006’s “Hidden World”, was excellent too; a cannily ambitious expansion of the hardcore aesthetic, with strings from Final Fantasy/Arcade Fire’s Owen Pallett and some dynamic gear-shifts that could usefully be described as progressive. “The Chemistry Of Common Life” is in much the same vein, and I’m pleased to say it’s terrific. Sometimes, to be honest, that progressive dimension basically amounts to slow builds for intros - as on the raging, possibly Drive Like Jehu-like “Crooked Head”, or the distant flute which introduces “Son The Father” and the album itself. But “Son The Father” also has a melodiously screaming woman duetting with frontman Pink Eyes, and pummelling wave after wave of Guitar Army noise that is genuinely exhilarating. As “The Chemistry Of Common Life” piles on, these become satisfyingly familiar tricks. The grandiose “No Epiphany” is the culmination of all this, with allegedly 18 guitars, massed organs and female backing vocals, a reversed fuzz intro and a general haywire grandeur that reminds me how oddly close My Bloody Valentine could be to a hardcore band, especially live. My colleagues, I should note in passing, say this one’s like The Dandy Warhols. According to the trusty press release, guest singers on the album include Katie Stelmanis (from Fucked Up’s hometown of Toronto) and the Vivian Girls (who are getting a bit of blog heat at the moment, but who sound perilously like The Shop Assistants to me). It doesn’t, however, reveal which one of these vocalists shares the honours on “Royal Swan”, and who has a grand guignol diva tone which reminds me variously of Siouxsie or PJ Harvey. There are a couple of instrumental interludes that could’ve slid off Mogwai’s “Come On Die Young”. But mostly, amongst all the pomp and self-conscious scope, it’s the pumping, anthemic songs that stick with you: “Days Of Last”, “Twice Born”, the title track itself, that all remind a hardcore dilettante like me of some monstrous dream hybrid between “Damaged”-era Black Flag and Husker Du circa “New Day Rising”. I’m sure some of you can come up with more apposite reference points, mind. . .

Don LaFontaine 1940 - 2008 It’s a fair bet that you don’t recognise the name. But the voice, surely, is as iconic to moviegoers as Harry Lime’s final act appearance in The Third Man, Omar Sharif’s entrance in Lawrence Of Arabia or the great white’s tail fin in Jaws. Don LaFontaine was the unseen star of Hollywood; he was the guy who provided over 5,000 gravely voiceovers for movie trailers. You know the kind of thing. Everything began with “In a world…” or “In a time…”, all delivered by LaFontaine in a deep, ominous baritone. No wonder, perhaps, he was nicknamed “The voice of God”. A native of Bob Dylan's hometown, Duluth, Minnesota, Don started off doing voiceovers in 1964, for a Western, Gunfighters Of Casa Grande, and went on to do trailer spots for everything from Doctor Strangelove to Batman Returns. Anyway, here’s some of his more memorable moments: Fatal Attraction: “A look that led to an evening, a mistake he’d regret all his life…” 2001: A Space Odyssey: “Millions of years ago, before the human race existed, an adventure began…” The Terminator: “Inhuman, relentless, unstoppable. He has only one purpose. Murder…” Here's the trailer for Comedian, the documentary about Jerry Seinfeld’s return to stand-up, which is a great send-up of Don. And here he is, sending himself up in a TV commercial. As the man himself might say: "In a world after Don, we shall not hear his like again..."

Judging by the activity on the blog about “Golden Age”, there’s a fair amount of excitement about TV On The Radio’s “Dear Science”. And, now that I’ve heard the album properly a few times, I reckon it’s pretty justified: this is the best record the band have made by a mile. I’m going to start by quoting our regular French penfriend, Baptiste, who posted this about “Dear Science” on the “Golden Age” blog. “ It is way more ambitious and broad than ‘Return’... (which I liked btw),” he writes. “Strings and horns, more concise songs, a fuller band , more grief than anger I'd say (even though anger is kind of grief), more soul-ish, I guess, less martial (still, there's a sort of drum'n'bass song). They move on, that's for sure.” I’d agree with most of that, though it seems a hugely angry album to me, and I wasn’t personally a huge fan of “Return To Cookie Mountain”. That record seemed to me prey to David Sitek’s worst excesses: the obsessive layering, a certain overdone aesthetic which often came close to smothering the songs. While the rich complexities of TV On The Radio are still vividly apparent on “Dear Science”, there’s also some space there. You can pick out individual instruments much more easily this time, which as Baptiste points out, heightens our awareness of the fantastic musicianship; there isn’t so much of that glutinous, super-processed merging of sounds. Then of course there’s the increased funkiness, which’ll be readily apparent to anyone who’s heard “Golden Age”. In his fascinating interview with the band in the current Uncut, Peter Shapiro describes “Dear Science” as the work of an Afro-punk-disco band with axes to grind and butts to shake,” which is very good. What’s striking, though, is the way they re-invent various bits of the ‘80s in ways that are not quite like their other Brooklyn/discopunk contemporaries – like, for instance, how they graft Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” onto a Bowie vamp for “Golden Age”. Their old chum Bowie is a prized influence here, so much so that the usual Peter Gabriel reference that has haunted TV On The Radio from day one seems rather superseded. “Stork & Owl” is a tremulous, opulent ballad that could just about have fitted on to “Scary Monsters”. But even there, there’s so much else going on: as my colleague Phil points out, there’s something of Prince’s freaked balladry circa “Sign O’ The Times” here, too. The first three tracks of “Dear Science”, meanwhile, are just about as strong as any start to an album I’ve heard this year. “Halfway Home” has barbershop harmonies that conjure up a sort of gothic, gilded “Surfin’ Bird”, but the overheated synths and voluptuous chorus melody remind me vaguely of one of their predecessors at 4AD, Ultra Vivid Scene. “Crying” is one of the album’s most potent funk tracks (up there with the vibrant mix of Stax horns, Afrobeat rhythms, wiry New York punk-funk guitars and righteous invective that is “Red Dress”), where the weak – in a good way – rhythm guitar is pitched somewhere between the Family Stone and, since it’s more clipped and less sloppy, someone like A Certain Ratio or Quando Quango, maybe. Finally, track three, “Dancing Choose”, fires up an overdriven, drum’n’bass-related breakbeat, then finds one of the singers – Tunde Adebimpe, I think, but he and Kyp Malone flit round each other so much this time round that it’s not always easy for me to identify who’s taking the lead – spit-rapping in the style of a hyper-modernised “Subterranean Homesick Blues” or, perhaps more accurately, “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It”. Superb, exciting music. In this context, baroque ballad constructs like “Family Tree” take longer to bed in. But this is an album with myriad nuances and details to investigate once the initial dazzling punch has worn off. As “Dear Science” goes on, it sometimes feels like the patented Sitek mist is descending again. But on, say, “DLZ”, the intimidating closeness is undercut with a new ferocity and focus. They’ve been in this territory before, but never so successfully. Ditto the finale, “Lover’s Day”, which revisits that martial vibe that Baptiste suggested was played down this time. Sitek really piles it on here, so that it seems like a marching band of Brooklyn bohemians are heading, enraged but with deadly purpose, towards the Whitehouse. But again, the definition is sharper, the tune stronger (a touch of “When Doves Cry”, maybe?), the cumulative effect overwhelming in a dynamic rather than delirious way. It makes “Dear Science” feel like a fabulously ambitious call to arms, rather than an over-elaborate trinket. One for the end-of-year lists, I reckon, then. . .