15 years ago, the great Toronto punk band Fucked Up began an ambitious series of records — entire EPs devoted to the years of the Chinese Zodiac. On those records, Fucked Up have always been at their most adventurous, stretching their arty hardcore out to 20-minute track lengths and pulling in ideas from all over the musical landscape. Right now, Fucked Up are in the process of releasing their first Zodiac record since 2017’s Year Of The Snake, and it seems like it’s going to be their wildest and most expansive one yet. The EP is now more than 45 minutes long, and the band is only halfway through releasing it.

Fucked Up recorded Year Of The Horse between 2016 and 2021, and they’ve divided the album up into four parts. They shared the first part of Year Of The Horse last month, and now they’ve come out with the second “act” of the EP. It’s a massive, sprawling 26-minute track that gets even weirder than the first one.

You won’t hear too much hardcore on “Year Of The Horse – Act Two,” even though Fucked Up singer Damian Abraham has a purely hardcore voice. The track instead roams through the lands of psychedelic doom metal, experimental pop, charging-on-horseback classic rock, spaghetti-western soundtrack, and eerie ghost-carnival goth-blues, among many others. Guest singers Tuka Mohammed, Eidolon, and Maegan Brooks Mills add more textures and contrasts. The members of Fucked Up add instruments like trumpet and vibraphone. This thing is a trip. Listen below.

Year Of The Horse is up for pre-order at Bandcamp. If you order it, you’ll get the new parts of the record as they come out. Fucked Up have also made the liner notes available for download here.