The problem with picking a favorate album by Fuguzi is that each time you listen to one of their records, it BECOMES your favorate. "Kill Taker" is probably the quintessenal Fuguzi album: it fuses their blasting punk with their brilliant experments, with amazing results.
But End Hits is more suited to my taste. The band is loud as ever, but they remind me just as much of Captian Beefheart as they do Minor Threat here. They use hardcore textures, but only as a framework to play with layered guitars, shiffting time signatures, creepy vocal experments, and wierd electrtonic utterances. They are constantly locking together for insane rhtyms, scraping amazingly controlled feedback out of their amps and mics, and adding codas to songs when you least expect them. It is like walking a dark house and having monsters pop out when you are off gaurd. This is art rock painted on a hardcore canvas.
This band also REALLY knows how to use a studio. They have this knack for making increadibly layered, intercate music, while allowing it to sound live and spontainious. They must spend hours getting all the amps and microphones in just the right place, to get just the right depth. The result is that even their off the cuff noises are as rich as other bands layered overdubs.
The music is frightening, dark, thick and completely uncommerical. All the songs are fully realized, and the experments always work. The intensity never lets up but there are musical surprises everywhere. To be honest, you have probably not heard much like this. I sure as hell haven't.
Strongly Reccomended.
June 3, 2008it is so difficult to say what fugazi release is their best. for me, it's this or repeater. i love them both, but for totally different reasons. the songwriting on this album is incredible, damn near perfect i think. yes, it's different from the rest of the stuff they've done in the past, but all fugazi albums are like that.
if you need one reason to buy this, it's for break. easily, the best fugazi song ever recorded.
September 18, 2007 |  | it's a creeper, it's a creEPER, IT"S A CREEPER |  |
there's no Margin Walker, no Repeater, no Great Cop. but as far as albums go, from beginning to end, this one has become my favorite over time. now, if someone asked me "who is this band 'Fugazi' and what do they sound like?" i wouldn't choose anything from this record as an introduction to the band, opting for something easily accessible like Waiting Room or Blueprint instead. but End Hits is amazing, it just takes a little longer to realize it. My favorite track, Recap Modotti, sounds like Polvo at their very best (listen to it again and tell me it wouldn't fit right in on Exploded Drawing). I think the overall mood of the album is akin to Steady Diet... but I think they surpass that record here; whereas SDoN had the feel of a band still stretching its legs and forging their identity, End Hits is the sound of a band confident in their sound while putting their musical (and lyrical) chops to the test. While more subtle than excellent predecessor Red Medicine, this record is not w/out rocking tracks, like the anthemic Place Position and Five Corporations. Fugazi also has a knack for writing fantastic instrumentals, and here they add Arpeggiator to classics like Sweet and Low(one of my favorite songs ever) and Brendon #1. End Hits won't grab you by the throat like the earlier releases, but if you invest three or four listens to it, you'll find the rewards were definitely worth the time.
August 14, 2007 | | Doesn't immediately hit you, but boy, when it does... | |
If Fugazi has become the living embodiment of the term "independent," then the band members' musical growth seems to have been equally unaffected by contemporary movements launched outside of their hometown, practically to the point where "Fugazi" and the "Washington, D.C., sound" are interchangeable. (Although the band members might disagree.) It's consistently amazing to hear them pass through areas of angular post-punk, dub, hardcore and rock while remaining separate from all of the above; and on "End Hits," Fugazi continue to move forward as their own genre. From the abruptly clipped opening track onward, "End Hits" is a demanding, slow-burning, almost cinematic listen -- production-wise, it's certainly the richest "headphone record" in the band's history. Sound effects, programmed beats ("Closed Captioned"), wah pedals ("Guilford Fall"), tambourines ("Five Corporations"), vocal treatments ("No Surprise") and layers of overdubs snake through these 13 tracks, each alight with a sense of purpose and an understanding of both economy and contrast. The noted Fugazi sense of urgency remains in tracks such as "Place Position" and the fittingly titled instrumental "Arpeggiator," but it's tempered by tortoise-like development. (After all, with age, one realizes the importance of contemplating an idea rather than merely screaming one's lungs out.) Guy Picciotto's and Ian MacKaye's lyrics are as open-ended as ever; and while it might seem logical to assume that a song such as "Closed Captioned" is pointed at the media ("And since we live in present tense/The only hope of making sense/All depends on the source of light"), it's not cut-and-dry here. Same goes for the title: "End Hits" could be a statement against the music industry's widget-production system, an indication that this is Fugazi's swan song, or a bullet fired at the image of the rock star and the media that've propagated it. All are equally relevant to a band who've spent a career questioning their own place in an industry they simultaneously embrace and disregard.
August 10, 2006| | | ::Gasp:: They Can Really Play They're Instruments | |
By far their best album in regards to musical composition. A must for any Fugazi fan. Some say it's "too jammy" but I believe it's part of the natural evolution of the band. Fugazi probably never would have gone on to make "the Argument" without "End Hits" as its precursor. A great album.
July 3, 2006More reviews at Amazon.com ...
(44 reviews)