Fuck Buttons review
Tarot Sport
(ATP)
The title of Fuck Buttons’ debut, Street Horrrsing, really opened my eyes. Suddenly I was envisioning a pirate barebacking a pony down Columbus Drive. And the band’s name? No more was it a salacious euphemism for a woman’s sweet spot, but a repudiation: “I love zippers and can never get enough of snaps, but fuck buttons!”
Intonations matter. Take Tarot Sport, for example. Fuck Buttons haven’t altered the script much, but instead of the brimstone boils that highlighted their first album, Tarot glides in spots, crackling like a distant firework. Opener “Surf Solar”‘s 10-minute length portends an epic firebombing, but what originally comes off like an intro fade-in continues to sizzle and simmer without foaming over — if I can get away from the stove-top metaphor it’s like skipping stones off the sun to a thumping beat. “Rough Steez” intimates that perhaps the wiring is beginning to melt in the heat, and “Olympians” celebrates with an anthemic progression that continuously builds momentum where Horrrsing wrecked it. The only issue is “The Lisbon Maru,” which almost mirrors the debut’s “Sweet Love For Planet Earth.” No amount of inflection can hide that.
— Steve Forstneger
