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Aug 23, 2013Beyond constructing music marked by a consummate sense of craftsmanship, Fuck Buttons continue to toy with notions of what an album should be, a natural progression for a band whose only defining quality is their refusal to settle on a definitive sound.
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Aug 19, 2013Slow Focus is a tremendously gifted album; one that remarks on what electronic music is still capable of, while knowingly realizing that the sky’s the limit.
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MagnetAug 16, 2013Slow Focus finds them instituting a newfound affinity for broken, off-kilter beats, alongside their now-signature knack for teasing irresistible melodies out of chaotic, discordant noise. [No. 101, p.54]
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Aug 9, 2013Though it’s hardly labyrinthine--these songs proceed in pretty much a linear fashion–Slow Focus immerses the listener in an aural landscape that offers so much to explore.
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Aug 6, 2013Slow Focus is more often than not an Olympic-standard piece of work.
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Aug 5, 2013If we could compare each of Fuck Button’s works some sort of dazzling spectacle, whether it be a firework display, a meteor shower, falling in love, or something of the like, than Slow Focus makes a strong case for being their most brilliant event yet.
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Jul 26, 2013Slow Focus is the album Fuck Buttons were born to make.
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Jul 24, 2013Rather than a portrait of Fuck Buttons’ time in the studio, Slow Focus is a hovering meditation on a distant, eerie landscape; a panorama with a sustained, totalising gaze that figures an expanse in perpetual decay and dis-ease.
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Jul 24, 2013It is by no means comfortable, but it results in an album that is experienced rather than simply listened to.
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Jul 23, 2013They sound like anonymous technoids coming to grips with what it means to want the world in musical terms that will most certainly put their faces on the map. Better invest in some robot helmets.
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Jul 23, 2013Visceral but poised, mannered but emotionally lucid, seductive but astringent, cacophonous but, yes, focused, the album finds Hung and Power charting kaleidoscopic tableaux out of giddy contradictions with the confidence of dancefloor pros.
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Jul 23, 2013Sophomore release Tarot Sport provided the giant leap to get to this point, but Slow Focus displays an act from a niche genre deftly handling the necessities and opportunities that come with sudden, rapid ascendance.
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Jul 22, 2013Slow Focus was solely produced by Fuck Buttons; a decision that shows how confident, individualistic and fearless this duo have become in a short time.
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Jul 22, 2013Slow Focus has the sheen and seemingly high stakes of a blockbuster movie--and enough easy thrills to compensate for the stakes being, in reality, pretty low.
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Jul 22, 2013It is all-consuming and consistently impressive from the off.
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Jul 22, 2013As clever as Fuck Buttons are at cobbling together unlikely juxtapositions, they're master builders when it comes to tension and release.
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Jul 22, 2013Slow Focus isn’t alienating, it’s other, and it’s a pleasure to take a wander around its unfamiliar landscapes.
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Jul 22, 2013This is the first Fuck Buttons album that feels like post-invasion music. Victory lingers, but it also stings.
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Jul 22, 2013Power and Hung have made either the year's most introverted party album or the most expansive loner's album; either way, there are few albums this year that offer this much space to get lost in.
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Jul 22, 2013Slow Focus delivers some of their most masterful and seemingly effortless music yet.
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Jul 22, 2013Slow Focus wears its time well and matches their grand sights.
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Jul 22, 2013There's no progression or narrative, it's immersive rather than engrossing. Slow Focus is an album to steep yourself in.
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Jul 22, 2013A fearsome, mind-bending collection.
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Jul 19, 2013At times bleak and nigh on disturbing yet always thick with complexity, it's a record which takes many, many listens to get to grips with and rewards repeat listens with almost unbelievable depth.
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Jul 19, 2013Slow Focus is unmistakably Fuck Buttons, the logical continuation of the music produced by a duo who never strive to do something expected.
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Jul 19, 2013It's brusque, overwhelming and complicated. But for a band so intent on pushing boundaries, this is a strange, almost faltering, sidestep.
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Jul 18, 2013[2009's Tarot Sport's] default emotional setting was somewhere between the kind of breakdown that causes clubbers to throw their hands in the air and the kind of breakdown that ends with you being strapped to a gurney. It's an impressive trick, and one the band repeat on Slow Focus.
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Jul 17, 2013Their less-than-radio friendly name will likely keep them just outside of the mainstream, but what they've accomplished on this monolith of an LP is going to be impossible to ignore during this last half of 2013.
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Jul 16, 2013Slow Focus is a grisly journey into the unknown, but an exhilarating one--if you’re willing to take it.
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UncutJul 12, 2013It's compact, often menacing strangeness has its own beauty. [Aug 2013, p.71]
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Q MagazineJul 12, 2013The whole thing is raw, exhilarating and completely compromised. [Aug 2013, p.102]
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Jul 12, 2013Easy on the ear it isn’t, but Slow Focus carves its name into the synapses nonetheless, like some sort of unstoppable, power-electronics ‘In Utero’.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 38 out of 41
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Mixed: 1 out of 41
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Negative: 2 out of 41
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Jul 30, 2013
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Jul 24, 2013
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Dec 20, 2021