Album Of The Week: Fuck Buttons Slow Focus

Of all the moderately popular bands with the word "fuck" in their band name, Fucked Up is and will always be my favorite. But London's Fuck Buttons, now three albums deep into a career that turns noise into planetarium music, do the most to earn their "fuck." The "fuck" in Fuck Buttons' name doesn't remotely connote sex, and it's not the "fuck" that you yell when you bang your toe on a door frame. Instead, the "fuck" of Fuck Buttons is the stoned, befuddled, contemplating-the-infinite sort of "fuck." It's the "fuck" that you say out loud when you see eyeless cave-lizards on Planet Earth, or when you exhale after watching that guy cross the Grand Canyon on a tightrope: "Fuuuuuhhck." That's the "fuck" you use when no other word will quite do when you're trying to hint at the enormity of what's going on within your brain at the exact moment when you say it. And of the duo's three albums, the brand new Slow Focus has the highest "fuck" factor; it's your latest soundtrack for wondering what's on the other side of a black hole, or why people can be such dicks sometimes.