Album review: The Muslims – Fuck These Fuckin Fascists

Formed in the months after Donald Trump’s election, The Muslims are a queer, POC Muslim punk trio from North Carolina. That shouldn’t leave any doubt as to where their political allegiances lie, but in case the three albums they’ve released since 2018 didn’t do the trick, Fuck These Fuckin Fascists should. Not only does the cover’s cartoon artwork depict a fist punching someone that looks suspiciously John Lydon – the Sex Pistol / PiL frontman / Country Life butter advocate who recently admitted voting for Trump – but its 12 snappy, acerbic songs all take direct swings at the forces of oppression.

Yet despite the aggressive nature of that cover art and this album’s song titles – not to mention the radical politics at the band’s core – there’s also a wonderful playfulness here. These songs are serious, but they’re also fun. Opener Hands Up, Don’t Shoot suggests an uncompromisingly lethal solution to police brutality set to a joyously chaotic, restless punk blitzkrieg, while Crotch Pop A Cop offers a no less vicious examination of the inherent racism in the U.S. police force.

Blue lives aren’t the only target in the crosshairs here. Unity starts with a soundbite from Joe Biden and is a brash, sloppy hardcore anthem that throws equal blame on Democrats and Republicans for upholding white supremacy, while Illegals throws in some Afropunk influence into the jaunty, catchy chorus that proclaims, ‘No-one’s illegal but white people.’ Kill Your Masters is lyrically as violent as you’d imagine, GCDC takes arms against capitalism and encourages class war, and the title-track is an unforgiving as it should be.

Elsewhere, coronavirus slams all the idiots who don’t wear their masks (or wear them correctly) in the middle of a global pandemic, and the whimsically sounding Live Laugh Lead slams liberals for their pathetic inability to take a stand against injustice. And then there’s the last track, John McCain’s Ghost Sneaks Into The White House And Tea Bags The President, which uses the late ‘moderate’ / good guy Republican to A) prove there’s no such thing and B) take a shot at the two-party system. Which president? All of them. No-one is safe on Fuck These Fuckin Fascists – and rightly so.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Petrol Girls, FEVER 333, Anti-Flag

Fuck These Fuckin Fascists is released on Epitaph on September 24.

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