The Shape of Punk to Come

This album marked a sharp and conscious departure from Refused's earlier work. The philosophy of the album, expounded in the ample liner notes and encapsulated in the song "New Noise", was that punk and hardcore music could not be anti-establishment by continuing to package revolutionary lyrics in sounds which had been increasingly co-opted into the mainstream. The sound of the record challenged existing punk sensibilities; it can be seen as "punk" at a fundamental level and includes experimental combinations of post-hardcore, post-punk, techno, and jazz sounds.

The album also includes "political interludes" between some songs. The use of more technological sounds or drum and bass music, particularly on The New Noise Theology E.P. which followed the album, is a tactic that various members of Refused have credited to the influence of Philadelphia punk band Ink & Dagger.

In 2006, producer Pelle Henricsson said of the recording:

We did not use Pro Tools at all. The Shape was recorded on 24 track 2 inch tape and occational Adat's in sync when the 24 tracks wasn't enough. The drums was recorded as grooves and then edited in Soundscape without any grid reference. The whole thing was then bounced back to 2 inch where all guitars and basses were recorded. Same thing with vocals but not "every word" moved around. More like keeping phrases that was within the groove. The Soundscape system we used back then held 12 tracks and was used as a stand alone editing unit. Overall the whole recording had groove as THE key word, maybe thats why its still a cool record!?[15]

The album's production has inspired other artists to work with Pelle Henricsson and Eskil Lövström, including Poison the Well,[16] and Hell is for Heroes.[17]

• The cover artwork imitates the cover of Teen-Age Dance Session (1997) by Rye Coalition, which is of itself a reference to the cover of Teen-Age Dance Session (1954) by Dan Terry.
• The song title "Worms of the Senses / Faculties of the Skull" is an allusion to a line from Allen Ginsberg's long poem "Howl".
• The transition from "Liberation Frequency" to "The Deadly Rhythm" features a spoken word part taken from an introduction by Bob Garrity for the song "A Night In Tunisia" performed by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Candido Camero on November 14, 1952.[18]
• "The Deadly Rhythm" features a musical quotation of Bo Diddley's 1959 R&B song "I'm a Man".
• The break in "New Noise" samples Colonel Kurtz's famous monologue from the 1979 Vietnam war film Apocalypse Now.
• The spoken text at the start of '"Protest Song '68" comes from the opening of the Henry Miller novel Tropic of Cancer.
• The title of the song "Refused are Fucking Dead" is a reference to the Born Against song "Born Against are Fucking Dead".
• The album's title The Shape of Punk to Come and the song of the same name are a reference to Ornette Coleman's 1959 avant-garde jazz album The Shape of Jazz to Come.[9]
• "Tannhäuser / Derivè" includes a reference to the theme "The Augurs of Spring: Dances of the Young Girls" from Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.

"New Noise" has been featured in movies such as Crank, Jalla! Jalla!, The Hitman's Bodyguard, Boot Camp, and Friday Night Lights; in the television programs 24 (Season 1), Rage, Criminal Minds, Nitro Circus, The Following, and Wayne; in the video game Tony Hawk's Underground; and in the trailers for the movie Witching and Bitching and the video game Doom.[19] It was also the entrance music for major league pitcher John Axford when he closed games for the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Used, Anthrax, Snot, and Crazy Town have covered "New Noise" on numerous occasions live.

The British magazine Rock Sound gave the album The Shape of Punk to Come the number one spot in the magazine's list of the 100 albums that most influenced the music that Rock Sound covers.

Paramore's song "Born For This" from their 2007 record Riot! features a direct reference to the song "Liberation Frequency" by quoting the lyric "We want the airwaves back." and overlaying it with a modulation of the songs leading melody.[20]

In 2004, a DVD-Audio version of the album was released, remixed in 5.1-channel Surround Sound. Many of the songs were compositionally altered, some significantly. "Bruitist Pome #5," for example, was thoroughly reworked, while a seven-minute version of "Refused Are Fuckin Dead" transitions into a new second half, which incorporates elements of the Bombe Je Remix of the song. Other songs received new intros or outros.

In 2003, Kerrang! magazine listed The Shape of Punk to Come at #13 on their 50 Most Influential Albums of All Time list. In 2005, The Shape of Punk to Come was ranked number 428 in Rock Hard magazine's book The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time.[21] In 2013, LA Weekly named it the twelfth best punk album in history.[22] In 2015, the Phoenix New Times named it the fifth best political punk album ever.[23]

The album has sold 179,000 copies in the United States as of June 2015.[24]

The Shape of Punk to Come personnel as listed in the album liner notes.[25]