There are some songs that stop belonging to the bands who wrote them. Refused’s “New Noise” is one of those. It came out of “The Shape Of Punk To Come” in 1998 and pretty much stayed there ever since, stuck in the walls, still impossible to hear without waiting for that opening build and the moment Dennis Lyxén cuts through it with “Can I scream?” For a lot of people across punk, hardcore and everything that drifted out from there, it was less a single track than a permanent reference point.
For Ronny Flissundet, that history goes back earlier than the song itself. In a note shared with us around Rule Of Two’s new cover, he traces it back to 1994, when he was a 17-year-old skater punk in the Norwegian woods, finding Refused through mail order and the wider Swedish underground around Arvika Festival and Burning Heart Records. He writes that he was already “ready to all-consume this new world recently revealed to me,” then got pulled further in by the Umeå scene and by Refused in particular. “Refused just spoke to me in a way very few other bands ever had before. And that was just the beginning.”
He points to “Songs To Fan The Flames Of Discontent” as one of his all-time favorite records by any band, and one that changed how he listened to music, read lyrics, understood the politics tied to it, and wrote his own stuff as a singer, lyricist and guitarist in punk and hardcore bands.
By the time “The Shape Of Punk To Come” landed a few years later, he was already deep in it. In his words, it was “an absolutely unique album, so out of the box to hardcore punk rules, yet still so spot on for an exploding generation of hardcore kids from Scandinavia and beyond.”
That brings him back to “New Noise” itself, which he calls “the actual cult classic punk rock anthem of a generation, making waves for generations to follow.”
He doesn’t really try to sand that down into neat language either. “‘New Noise’ is a dynamic masterpiece. The nerve in the picking intro, the slow but so intense build up, the blasting drums, the heavy bass, and the iconic Dennis Lyxén ‘Can I Scream’ where the jackhammer hits you in the face. And so on. Beyond words to describe. But those who knows this song, they know exactly what I’m talking about. Just.. wow!”
Rule Of Two’s version arrives today, and it pushes that history through the Oslo group’s own setup instead of trying to recreate the original on its own terms.
The band describes it as their most intense and hardcore-influenced track to date, a darkwave-industrial reinterpretation built from analog synths, distorted bass and heavy programmed drums, while keeping the screaming vocals and the underlying tension of the original intact. The reference points this time sit closer to Nine Inch Nails and Carpenter Brut than late 90s hardcore, though the song’s backbone is still there.
While Refused were on their final run last fall — after the split, the reunion in the 2010s, more touring, more recordings, and what he calls their “very final tour and show in late 2025” — Rule Of Two had the idea to try something they more or less saw as forbidden.
“Let’s do the ultimate challenge, the ultimate illegal, untouchable task. Let’s record a cover version of New Noise. BUT in our very own way, combing the darkwave/cyberpunk, synth-driven, programmed beats-filled sound with the rebellion, the madness, the energy and the geniality of the original.”
So they did. The new version was written by Refused, with lyrics by Dennis Lyxén, and re-recorded by Rule Of Two. It was mixed and mastered at Crystal Island Studios in Nesodden, Norway, and arrives with a music video by Kristian Liljan.
As Flissundet tells it, the band kept some of the guitars and bass from the main riff in place, but shifted the center of gravity elsewhere. “It sounds a lot different, but still a lot the same. The vocals has the same screamo intensity, some of the guitars and bass in the main riff is there, yet still the distorted synth bass and hardcore electronic beats and loops are the main substance.”
He also admits they were surprised by how well it held together once it was done. “And to our surprise, it worked out shockingly well! Well, it is of course up to the listeners, the judge and the jury (hopefully not the executioner) to decide that, but we have put in shitloads of hours, days, weeks, blood, sweat and tears into this, so we really hope you can enjoy this as much as we have done.”
