Street Horrrsing - Fuck Buttons

Street Horrrsing

Fuck Buttons
DFA Records.

SCQ Rating: 76%

As quickly as many people discount noise bands and repel the idea of even listening to one, that very dismissal is an obstacle greater than any musical preferences or expectations they may be standing by. To hear five minutes of a noise band and reject it is almost rhetorical; you need to listen beyond the parameters of mere volume, which is an overrated facet to the genre, and find the textures, mood and ambition that most people, whose collective reasoning is to tune out, usually miss. The key to finding heart in challenging records like this is just the opposite of quickly rejecting it; you've got to spend time with it. Take it on walks, spin it before your weekend starts – keep it personal. Not only because most people will roundly reject it on mention, but because you'll start finding yourself buried within its songs.

If you've tested and tried noise to the edge of your sanity and still walked away empty-handed, Street Horrrsing might be the record to rope you back in. This is noise incubated to the soundtrack of Ibiza trance – its bass fuzzed out, its details blurred into catatonic textures, vocals tinny but melodies untouched – and born of electronic feedback, effect-petals and warped keyboards. It's 'Bright Tomorrow', dazzling dance-rock walking a tight-rope of digital detritus and 'Race You To My Bedroom/Spirit Rise', an immovable slate of static and thunder, shifting back and forth.

For all this synthetic noise, it's difficult to explain how Fuck Buttons come off as tree-hugging gypsies, closer in vibe to Animal Collective than the chic-noir vibe packaged alongside most electronic acts. Maybe it's those cathartic, metal-screams that serve as a postscript for most tracks or enviro-friendly song titles but the cover-art is dead-on: Street Horrrsing is set to the rhythm of humanity, not machinery. Much of what propels this album infinitely forward is tribal drumming, often manipulated by electronic cut-ups but true to our humble beginnings. If this all sounds far-reaching and pretentious, listen to 'Ribs Out', a sort-of transition track that pits the listener deep in foreign jungles, amidst the screams and deep-drum slaps of undiscovered indigenous ceremonials. At some level, it's eyebrow-raising but mesmerizing nonetheless.

Whether in a state of motion or standstill, Street Horrrsing occupies a lot of aural space, magnifying everything you see and feel into something altogether greater and scarier than it really is. Such an intrepid use of drama threatens to turn inward on the album itself, as few of these compositions stray from the template of a single idea, which continually builds in texture and intensity. That's 'Okay, Let's Talk about Magic' in a nut-shell; a melody too basic, stubborn in its repetition, and although melodic hooks are not Fuck Buttons' main priority, some luster is lost by the eighth or ninth minute.

All the same, I won't go so far as to call out any of these six tracks as being regrettable or excludable. Each is part of a sonic whole, and appropriately, each song bleeds into the next, continually raising the epic scale until 'Colours Move' comes to its roaring close. You press play again and hear those twinkling keys (the same heard in the final seconds of the disc), so calm and soothing, like windchimes rustling before a storm. As 'Sweet Love for Planet Earth' rises, Street Horrrsing almost feels like a new record. And you appreciate its peace so much more, as if you've just been through a deafening trial of uncertainty, one so intensive, you hadn't the moment to mentally convince yourself there would be a time you could look back and breathe easy. But there it is – your chance to rest up – before being tossed into the noise again. With even the last track flowing back into the first, Street Horrrsing is like a wheel, constantly revolving on vaguely ecological impulses with the heart of a planet that sees creation and destruction as equal hands toward sonic evolution.