Fans of hardcore should know what to expect from the Australian boys of Deez Nuts by now, and just from the title of the album alone, the band promise to stick true to the fast and heavy-hitting party music about drink, drugs, and generally having a fun time. You Got Me Fucked Up opens with an attempt to be anthemic with ‘Singalong’, it’s a solid track, pacing through the typical hardcore tropes in chugging verses before anthemic gang-vocal choruses, before the title track picks up the speed slightly to get the album going. It follows the same structure as the album opener, but nicely jumps into a jarring breakdown towards the end that pits percussive elements against each other in polyrhythms. It’s clear from the off that the band has invested more time in the production of this offering, with the songwriting more solidly following rules of the genre, but actually it seems to suffer a little from this, with each one of the album’s relatively short songs blending into each other a somewhat too well without there being too much that is memorable on a first listen. When listening, there is absolutely no question that it is a hardcore album, and it includes everything that would be expected from that. The crash cymbal is also fairly overbearing in the mix on several occasions throughout the album. ‘You Gotta Feel Me’ is one track that does stand out though, with singalong acapella parts synchronised nicely with another anthemic chorus and aggressive playing. The sudden brass forming the intro of “DTDFL4EVA” (drunk to death for life forever) provides a sudden change of pace, with the song itself being a tribute to Deez Nuts’ own 2013 classic ‘Shot After Shot’. Many of the other tracks simply feel like they are there just to keep the pace going, however. At a mere thirty minutes, the album feels like a surprisingly short one by the time that ‘Bitterest End’ kicks in with, actually, what is one of the album’s more memorable introductions. However, a mere ten songs, almost every single one of which is under three minutes, does seem slightly lacklustre after previous releases from Deez Nuts – even if the songs are just as enjoyable and, more importantly for this kind of band, moshable. That they certainly are, and it’s not difficult to envision a crowded room of people partying to any track on the album. You Got Me Fucked Up is an album clearly rooted in hardcore, with little room for deviation; that is perhaps what the band were aiming for with it, but it does little do advance their music or the genre. However, it remains a solid release for that genre, with the themes and attitudes of the hardcore scene never being lost once throughout. There remains the promise of many mosh pits opening up, and many shots being drunk, as Deez Nuts drink til death across Europe this Autumn. Score: 7/10 You Got Me Fucked Up Is Released October 18th Via Century Media Records