Nearly 20 years after its humble beginning, the journey of Fucked Up’s ever evolving Zodiac series begins its towering conclusion with the announcement of “Grass Can Move Stones,” a monumental 10 part finale set to a meticulously crafted text beginning with the album “Year of The Goat.”  

Four and a half years on from their last entry “Year of The Horse,” Grass Can Move Stones will encompass the final three entries into the series; Goat, Monkey and Rooster, telling one connected story over three albums, an almost five-hour musical voyage through their varied styles and influences, that will revisit and recontextualise elements from the previous 9 zodiac entries in ingenious and limitlessly imaginative ways.

The 10 sides of music will be released serially over the course of a year starting with Year Of The Goat on October 3 2025, Year of The Monkey in Spring 2026, and concluding with Year Of The Rooster in autumn, the last entry of which will coincide with the 20th anniversary of “Year of the Dog” in October 2026. Each entry will debut on the Fucked Up Bandcamp, followed by a vinyl pre-order for release on the longstanding home of Fucked Up’s Zodiac releases, Tankcrimes Records.

Grass Can Move Stones tells the story of Monkey and Good Goat, two young friends who embark on a journey of self discovery, encountering gods, magical creatures, and dangers along the way, loosely following the narrative of the fundamental Journey to the West, written in the 16th century by Wu Cheng'en. The story also charts the career of the band, whose search for a musical home has led them through a varied and complex discography over their 25 years as a band.

As a text, the lyrics which make up the tale of Grass Can Move Stones are an enormous lattice work of philosophy, literature, and benevolent self-mythology taking the reader through the life and times of Fucked Up via an expansive, fantastical open-world of dream like canyons, meadows, clifftops, and lakes; hellish encounters with enormous beasts, and uplifting moments of reverence and humility.

Compositionally, Grass Can Move Stones, is ambitious in its scale and in its execution. Goat, Monkey, and Rooster are through-composed operatic suites of music which develop their thematics alongside the text and action of the story while cataloguing and reimagining 20 years of musical material from the existing Zodiac releases. The music mirrors the words and the words mirror the music.

Tuka Mohammed (Year of the Horse) returns to centre stage with Fucked Up, voicing “Good Goat” throughout Grass Can Move Stones. She and Damian Abraham (The voice of Monkey) share the duty of making this journey on our behalves so we can gaze into the world in which the band, former guest vocalists from Year of the Pig, Ox, Tiger, Hare, Snake, and entirely new voices will fill out the cast of characters. Goat will feature Jennifer Castle, Tamara Lindeman (Weather Station), and Dwid Hellion (Integrity) as its central guests.

This is Fucked Up’s most ambitious work to date, a cinematic gesture of sound which relies not on the standard practice of “genre-pushing” or traditional mimicry, but developing a musical language within familiar sounds that lives exclusively in the narrative universe of this great story. Central to the sound, though, is the always colossal weight of the five original members of the band firing in tandem to produce big music in new ways. The production of Grass Can Move Stones spanned nearly 10 different studios, 6 years of development, and a large cast of guests to compile the necessary weight to complete this release. The result is like being dragged through the Cosmos by Metallica, Carcass, Spiritualised, Iron Age, Poison Idea, and L7.

A. Long Ago Gardens
B. Rivers And Lakes