Congrats

The flipside to this slightly dark streak that permeates the album with its huge drum pulses and malfunctioning circuitry, is the gentle subtlety at work.

Congrats still sounds unmistakably like Holy Fuck, but their vision of weird electronic pop is much clearer here.

In dialing back the chaos a bit, the band have made room to let the smaller details of their dense and intricate music shine. It may have taken six years to deliver, but Congrats was worthy of the wait.

This is an album polished enough to see your face in, and yet it’s probably--and this isn’t necessarily a criticism--the most disjointed Holy Fuck album to date.

They might've built their reputation on kinetic live shows, but taking the time to make a proper studio album has refreshed, revitalized and tightened their special sound.

While "Neon Dad" proves their aptitude for the same sort of psych-pop that Black Moth Super Rainbow use to free minds, "House of Glass" and "Crapture" suggest Holy Fuck are happier putting their rubbery grooves and vintage gear under serious duress. [Jul 2016, p.74]

If Congrats is no less aggressive than its three predecessors, the crisp Neon Dad qualifies as pop and Acidic is a weird kind of joyous electronic ska. [Jun 2016, p.92]

Yet for all its overwhelming menace, Congrats is a record that never gets fully lost within the darkness; the band demonstrating a perspicacity to chain one another up when in the past they would have ran feral.

From massive, bashy beginnings, Congrats opens out into an album of very real, ripped-rule-book excitement; it’s exhausting and exhilarating and wonderful.

All of the songs (minus one useless interlude) had at least something worth returning to.

Congrats is the welcome return of a foursome of dudes that are still plenty proficient at creating crooked, cock-eyed, almost-club jams (“Acidic”) and piling on swirling effects and rhythms to a critical mass without ever sounding like they’re losing control (“Sabbatics”).

Overall, Congrats acts more as a proof-of-concept than as a proper successor to Latin.

Reiterating a few of the Tonebank-Rhythm-Ko-esque grooves that we’ve heard before, albeit with a darker, occasionally shoegazy approach this time.

While Holy Fuck once felt like an absolute anomaly, it’s interesting to see that their brand of electronic music has become something of a trope. Even more interesting, though, is whether they’ll continue to push farther into dismantling that and forge into even newer territory. There are hints of it on Congrats, though that’s balanced by the feeling of too easily slipping into a familiar groove.