When I first heard Career Suicide I thought my turntable was spinning too fast. On Attempted Suicide (2006) the band was playing punk rock at what seemed like the fastest pace possible without careening off into another genre. Because of that, when I first heard this record I thought it was playing too slow.

With all those beats per minute it was easy to overlook the fact that what made Attempted Suicide so memorable was the songs themselves. It snarled like 1977′s best. Cherry Beach slows things down (it's still fast, by the way) and the result is an even greater rhythmic thrust. The band grooves and swaggers, now less a runaway train and more one that blasts through giant boulders with a fucking purpose. The intensity hasn't waned at all; Martin Farkas' vocals sound even more comfortably pissed this time around. Everything on this record just feels right. The songs "Cherry Beach" and "Double Life" have been around since 2008 and it shows. They have been perfected.

Aside from how much the four songs totally kick ass I am struck by how much these recordings sound like Fucked Up. It makes sense: the bands share a member (even though Jonah Falco plays different instruments in each band). Still, in discussing past Career Suicide records this personnel connection would seem more like punk rock trivia than anything else. Here it sounds like there's a bit more to it…

I've been excited to see what kind of music gets left in the wake of Fucked Up's genre-bending ways. I suppose it makes sense that one of the first hints of their influence comes from a member of the band. The stomping interludes during "Things Take a Turn" are probably the best example of this.

"Cast a seed to the sky as my valediction / That you could be the vine to grow a truth from the fiction / Empty the theatre / Rush through the door / Start living the life you never could before."
– Fucked Up, "Lights Go Up," from David Comes to Life (2011)

Is Damian Abraham singing to his drummer? As far as I can tell Fucked Up is not really dead, but long live Career Suicide anyway.