Fu Manchu preview

Fu Manchu
Double Door, Chicago
Sunday, March 11, 2007

Some reviewers are calling Fu Manchu’s newest effort, We Must Obey, a “comeback” record, or a “second wind” for the Southern California rockers. We never noticed they were gone, and definitely weren’t aware everything had been used up in the “first wind.”

It really all started with 2001’s California Crossing, where some die hards accused Fu of abandoning the sound that made them favorites among the pass-the-bong-and-crank-the-tunes-dude crowd in the mid-and-late ’90s — records like In Search Of . . . and The Action Is Go. Phooey. There are absolutely no radical changes on that album, just a ton of groove, a ton of fuzz pedal, and catchy-yet-heavy songs about California, skateboarding, and hotrods (Fu Manchu have been referred to as the hard rock Beach Boys before, and it’s not such a stretch). Were the songs a little more polished? A touch more poppy? Slightly smoother? Maybe. But it was still distinctly Fu Manchu. Anyone who says differently was just wanted a reason to bitch.

So if you’re looking at We Must Obey, released February 20th through Century Media/Liquor And Poker, as a return to form, we ask where the hell were you for 2004’s Start The Machine?

Artemis Pyledriver and Valient Thorr open.

— Trevor Fisher

Click here to download Fu Manchu’s “Hung Out To Dry.”

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly