Fuck Buttons – Street Horrrsing

It takes a very stable and sorted person to be able to enjoy Fuck Buttons without fear of bloodcurdling reprisals, as they are definitely not your average band.

This is the first foray into long players from the Bristol-based duo who formed in 2004, going on to become something of a cult favourite due to their notoriously mind-melting shows. Street Horrrsing, named after a mythical urban equestrian sport, is a masterful display of just how creative two unassuming looking chaps can be with weird noises, and the only way you can really describe the intense, intelligent and apocalyptic music making up this utterly unique and quite beautiful record is by dissecting the whole thing, track by track.

Sweet Love For Planet Earth is up first, a glittering and shimmering effort which morphs into dark drones and demonic shrieks over nine unholy and incredibly claustrophobic minutes. This is followed by the tribal Ribs Out, seemingly constructed purely from playful percussion and strange wailings and the climactic sonic attack of Okay, Let’s Talk About Magic which calls to mind zombie film soundtracks. The sun comes out during the euphoric white noise-driven Race You To My Bedroom – Spirit Rise, and it’s left to the house beats, sweet melody and explosive distortion of Bright Tomorrow and Colours Move’s ethereal and rhythmic electronica to wrap up the album’s six extremely distinctive songs.

Recorded in London at Tim Cedar (of Part Chimp‘s) studio with Mogwai‘s John Cummings as producer and Shellac‘s Bob Weston handling the mastering, Street Horrrsing sounds a bit like all three of those acts, spun with a generous amount of Sunn o))) and oodles of krautrock through an electronic blender. It’s certainly not an easy listen (each track ranges from four to ten minutes in length) but boy is it a captivating and ultimately very rewarding one; with the debut capturing perfectly the passion, ferocity and sheer raw power of the Fuck Buttons live show.

Play this to Courteeners and Editors fans and they’ll no doubt scarper quick smart, unleash it onto Hoosiers devotees and you might just finish them off altogether. These are, as we know, all good signs, and while Street Horrrsing may never scratch the surface of the mainstream, it is going to make an indelible mark on all those interested in ground-breaking underground music. Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power – we salute you.