By Jason Wellwood
I normally don’t like live records. Between bad recordings, obvious overdubs and embarrassing stage patter, I find most live albums to be unsatisfying to say the least. Live In Whitby from Ottawa’s Fuck The Facts destroys all of my misgivings in the first few seconds. The sound on this release is amazing! In fact, you can almost believe you’re standing directly in front of the sound guy at the venue, watching the sweat fly. The crowd is enthusiastic, but not overwhelming; you can hear the instruments and the mix between them. There is no mud here at all. On top of that, Mel doesn’t believe in ridiculousness between songs, just the facts: this is who we are, here’s the song, thanks for coming out, buy some merch. The no nonsense approach is really what the band is all about. It’s the music and it’s the experience with them and Live In Whitby lets you share that experience.
One thing about Fuck The Facts that I’ve always missed on the studio records compared to the live show is the intensity. Don’t get me wrong, the band has always sounded intense on record, but live? It’s about 10 times heavier. Mel’s roar is louder and scarier than anything you’ve heard on record but in between songs she and the rest of the band are gracious and obviously happy to be there. Songs are a little faster, a little angrier but still just as clean as on record. I would imagine that getting clean sound for FTF can be an issue in some places as most live venues still don’t seem to know how to mix anything more extreme than the local Tragically Hip cover band. The recording on this beautifully captures the intensity of the band and conveys how much fun they are to see live.
Live In Whitby is a great document of a band who believes in intensity and experimentation and can pull it off live. In keeping with the tradition of Fuck The Facts live recordings, Live In Whitby will be available for download or on limited edition (only 50) cassette as of July 27th. Also in keeping with Fuck The Facts DIY attitude, digital downloads will be ‘pay what you can’. I’d recommend paying a lot; it’s (ahem) fucking worth it!
Buy the cassette or download here – http://fuckthefacts.bigcartel.com/
(Self Released)
Rating: 9.0
