7 months after the album’s release, Refused unceremoniously broke up after the cops shut down their performance at a DIY house show in Virginia while on tour for The Shape of Punk to Come. Communication breakdowns, exhaustive touring commitments, a singer at odds with his bandmates, all while promoting a classic album yet to be discovered: the rock and roll cliché.
Singer Dennis Lyxzén went on to explore a kind of Debord-ian pastiche through the band The (International) Noise Conspiracy, playing a gimmicky garage rock a la The Hives, receiving production and A&R from Rick Rubin. The other members forged on experimenting with the band TEXT. All of them adamantly stating that Refused would never return. In fact, Refused are fucking dead had become their calling card, synonymous with their brand. As if the shape of punk to come was too radical to keep the band together.
In 2012, with the reunion tour circuit on full tilt, Refused were hired to play the main stage at Coachella for a one-time only performance (as were their contemporaries At The Drive-In who share a similar legacy). There they sounded powerful and relevant, on-stage they looked stark and serious. World tour dates followed. They even played the late night television circuit, as if to bask in the success they missed during their breakup. Then silence.
They denied that they were working on new material, which seemed both like an unbelievable missed opportunity and also a relief. Until early 2015, when new social media accounts and cryptic messaging signaled that the reunion was real.