F*ck Buttons

Fuck Buttons are loud. No, serious:_ loud. Like, you can feel the air waves pounding, wearing-down-your-ears _loud. Like, layers of noise layered over tribal, furious beats_ loud_. And yet for a band so, well, loud, there’s something beautiful there too. Especially here tonight, in one of Manchester’s numerous dark, slightly grimy venues. One of those where the roof feels a little too low (if it’s not too high); where the lighting seems to cast a yellow, gaunt pall over the room.

And there in the middle of the floor are two guys, making this beautiful music, that manages to feel planned and precise (they are hunched over laptops after all), whilst retaining a wonderful sense of explosive potentiality. A drum sits next to them on stage, waiting to add physicality to the experience, making the intricate, fluctuating sound all that more visceral and passionate. Fuck Buttons add bite to the same tribal drum that Animal Collective and Eric Copeland already beat, because they’re loud, and they really want you to feel it.

Next to which Parts and Labor sound a little, well, laboured. Not that they aren't equally energetic and noisy, all relentless drums and distant vocals. But it sounds a little more collegiate and slightly tamer than it should do, considering their NY rock pedigree; you feel their music would benefit from abandoning its ever-so-slightly-indie slant and just embracing noise.

It feels a little jingoistic to say so, but it’s nice to see an English band sound more distinctive than an American counterpart, particularly when elsewhere (notably folk), home-grown talent seems too in thrall to American pioneers or tied down by what’s gone before to create something truly distinctive. Fuck Buttons manage to sound like the future and the real, material present at once, in a glorious, cacophonous, very loud kind of way.