Considering one of their crystalline singles (“Surf Solar”) was blasted at the start of Danny Boyle’s retina-singeing Olympics ceremony last summer, you’d think Fuck Buttons’ third album would be the Bristol duo’s go-big-or-go-home moment, the part where they get a Pharrell guest spot and a cosign from Kanye. (The guy’s been palling around with underground heads like Hudson Mohawke and Evian Christ lately so, hey, you never know.) And in some ways it is, only instead of pulling cues from co-producers like their last two LPs — efforts that were enhanced by DJ/remixer/multi-instrumentalist Andrew Weatherall and Mogwai guitarist John Cummings — Slow Focus is the first time Benjamin John Power and Andrew Hung attacked their maximalist bangers sans help at their own aptly-named Space Mountain studio.

As welcome as second opinions are when it comes to fine-tuning a record as off its rocker as this one, Power and Hung expand their sonic vocabulary considerably with no one around to rein it in. If you felt like their trance-inducing tracks could go on forever in the past, wait until you hear songs like “The Red Wing,” a mid-tempo mix of buzz-sawed synths, liquified drum loops and nutty disco nods. It’s groove-locked… read more »