Difficult listening pays off
Ten-minute songs, pounding drones, synths on endless loop, vocals nowhere to be found, and that charming band name—this one really sells itself, doesn’t it? Here’s the thing, though: under all that noise (no, within all that noise) are moments of extraordinary, revelatory beauty. On their sophomore album, Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power have carved some holes in the abrasive, percussive wall of sound that made Street Horrrsing at once memorable and difficult, and they’ve patched things up with atmospheric samples that—as on the appropriately titled epic “Olympians”—sound downright triumphant.
That’s not to say that Fuck Buttons have gone soft (“Rough Steez” is as dense and industrial as a Mouse on Mars b-side), and songs like the stunning opener “Surf Solar” split the difference between Horrrsing’s grit and Tarot Sport’s danceability. But the album as a whole, though uneasy listening, is big, powerful, and often overwhelming.