CANNED ICE CREAM

Do you remember the first time you heard it? The first time that Refused frontman Dennis Lyxzen belted out, “Can I scream?”? It could have been in 1998, in the positively scorching video “New Noise” from their now-revered record The Shape of Punk to Come. Or maybe it was during the recently acclaimed indie farce Triangle of Sadness. Or possibly it was during one of the 16 zillion instances that it was used during the Hulu “comedy” The Bear. Whenever it was, The Shape of Punk to Come, “New Noise,” and Dennis Lyxzen have had quite a bit of mileage since its release.

And now, after an extended hiatus, an improbable reunion, a victory lap, and a pair of recent LPs, Refused are sunsetting with a goodbye tour. ’Tis truly a bum-out, but hey—any real ones will know that Dennis and the boys are still alive and kicking in bands like INVSN, Fake Names, Backengrillen, and many others. “There’s not going to be a lack of me playing music,” chuckles Lyxzen. “Me, David, and Magnus from Refused have another project together where we play freejazz doom metal. We don’t want to play music together as Refused anymore. So we said let’s celebrate our legacy and the music that we put out and give people everything they want from us. Do a final tour and a proper send-off, because the last time we broke up, in 1998, it was horrible and traumatic for years.”