Fuck Easy Listening, Here Come The Fuck Buttons
Genre-bending electro duo create a surprisingly accessible album, Tarot Sport
Fuck Buttons
Tarot Sport
Released on Oct 20, 2009
If Fuck Button’s debut album Street Horrrsing showcased the duo’s “Sweet Love for Planet Earth,” as the opening track suggested, then “Surf Solar,” the first song from their new album, spreads that sweet lovin’ to the sun, the moon, to Mars and beyond. While Street Horrrsing was a fresh, inventive and unusually good debut that topped many of last year’s best-of lists, it featured a basically terrestrial sound. “Sweet Love for Planet Earth” was without a doubt one of the best songs of the year, but its peacefully percolating synths were quickly replaced by fuzzed-out guitar riffs, tribal drumbeats and psychotic screams. Buttons were pushed; eardrums were fucked. Fans of experimental, metal and noise genres probably rejoiced Street Horrrsing’s triptych. Others likely appreciated the effort but felt lost between or betrayed by one or more of the album’s seemingly competing genres.
Thankfully, Fuck Buttons mature and mellow their sound on Tarot Sport, the duo’s new album, out on ATP. When the album’s first single and opening track “Surf Solar” made its rounds across the blogosphere in late July, it appeared we were in for more of the same: button-pushing, genre-bending and eardrum-piercing electro-metal-noise. Indeed, the 7-inch edit of “Surf Solar,” which Pitchfork named Best New Track in late September, essentially sounds like a drugged-out dude imitating a clucking chicken over a four-to-the-floor beat and fuzzy guitars. And while the song title made Pitchfork’s Ryan Dombal think of riding some waves on the surface of the sun, the album version of “Surf Solar” probably has more to do with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey than it does the Silver Surfer. Squeaking, squealing synths build to a fevered pitch, recalling the scenes with the monoliths “deliberately buried” on the moon or floating in space just beyond Jupiter. Like 2001, the song is definitely trying to tell us something, but with the vocals chopped-up beyond belief, we’re never sure exactly what that is.
In fact, an enterprising filmmaker could probably sync Tarot Sport to his or her silent science fiction film and both parties would look all the more artistic and intelligent for it. Over the course of just seven songs, Fuck Buttons take us on quite a journey through time and space. The appropriately titled “Rough Steez” is both rough to listen to and plenty “steezy,” whatever that means. If we as listeners are passengers in a Fuck Buttons-driven spacecraft, “Rough Steez” has us breaking down or slowing significantly, but our drivers meld a mechanical rhythm, bang out tribal beats and beatbox from the cockpit. “The Lisbon Maru” has bubbly-warm but totally warped-out synths and a military drumbeat; “Olympians” has synths that sound peaceful and triumphant as they shimmer across the sound spectrum. As a soundtrack to a sci-fi flick, either song could help illustrate a growing bond between allies or highlight the preparation required to face the enemy. “Phantom Limb,” with all sorts of sound effects, is likely the fight against the enemy, while “Space Mountain” and “Flight of the Feathered Serpent” are the victory lap and the falling action, respectively. “Flight” is particularly enjoyable, with one synth riff squealing hopefully while the other synth sounds slightly somber, if cautiously optimistic.
The
result is an album much more mature and focused than Street Horrrsing.
That’s not to say Tarot Sport is a walk in the park.
The album won’t be featured in the easy listening section at Best
Buy. Fuck Buttons, beyond the issue of their name alone, are still
somewhat of an acquired taste. They aren’t the easiest band
to fall in love with upon first listen. But while Street Horrrsing was one small step for the band, Tarot
Sport will be one giant leap in increasing the band’s fanbase.
High Point
Infinitely more approachable, danceable and mature than their debut, Tarot Sport is one of the year’s best albums.
Low Point
If there has to be a low, it’s the rut of repetition some tracks fell into.
Posted by Ben Wadington on Oct 20, 2009 @ 6:00 am
