Fuck Buttons – 'Slow Focus' album review

Most people don’t feel all that strongly about buttons, but Benjamin John Power and Andrew Hung can’t fucking stand them. It’s this sort of characteristic determination and obstinacy that has helped turn their band into the possibly the biggest noise act in history. Don’t believe us? Well, you didn’t hear Merzbow or Whitehouse soundtracking last year's Olympic opening ceremony did you?

New opus ‘Slow Focus’ seems at first to carry on where 2009’s ‘Tarot Sport’ left off. The key ingredients are all here: pulsating and bubbling rivers of audio and expansive textures that predictably explode into the usual, distortion-drenched big moments. But things have gone dark. The triumphant, euphoric spirit of previous work is replaced with creeping dread and a constant sense of aggression. The beats that crept into ‘Tarot Sport’ are given more room to breathe, less obscured by the fuzz, but it just makes everything feel more menacing.

Album highlight ‘The Red Wing’ stands out because it feels a little lighter – a bit more hopeful than the oppressive atmosphere of the rest of the songs. Something may have darkened their Olympic spirit, but that hasn’t stopped Fuck Buttons from making their best album yet.

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Watch Fuck Buttons' 'The Red Wing' video