Music like literature and film is subject to personal taste, which we use to escape and relax for a while. In the ruling circumstances the music of Refused from Umeå, Sweden, is the best support. After spending time during 2019 listening a lot to the excellent albums The Shape of Punk to Come (1998), Freedom (2015) and the latest War Music (2019) the year was crowned on December 12 at Mejeriet in Lund. The album War Music we would classify as one of the best during 2019 and the concert at Mejeriet as one of the hardest we’ve seen the band perform. The proud support at Mejeriet was Rome Is Not A Town, an indie rock band from Gothenburg, Sweden. A really good performance and warm up. The vinyl was acquired and runs repeatedly on the record player.

We salute the band for taking a standpoint, which is expressed by the singer and front man Dennis Lyxzén. He often takes the opportunity to speak about equality, solidarity and that he will use his life to have an effect on people via the music. We refer to the previous gigs with Refused at KB, Borgholm In Flames and Copenhell, described at metalsouth. The band also consists of David Sandström, Kristoffer Steen, Magnus Flagge and Mattias Bärjed.

Mattias Bärjed, previously The Soundtrack of Our Lives and Free Fall, we now happily and hopefully see as a permanent member of this excellent hardcore band.

2019 was privately a tough year with sad family events and a rowdy time of reorganization at work. 2020 is here and now is the time to start to live the dream. Red, Morgan Freemans character in The Shawshank Redemption (1994), is released from prison after more than 40 years. He states 2 options: ‘Get busy living or Get busy dying’.

Thanks to the existence and performance of bands like Refused there’s no other way than to look forward to what life now can give and we cannot await to experience all the good music, film-and literature that lie around the corner.