Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
Critic Score
Based on 27 reviews
2009 Ratings: #27 / 923
Year End Rank: #11
User Score
Based on 219 ratings
2009 Rank: #29
Liked by 23 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
The Skinny

It's an utterly refreshing sound, one that's destined for crossover success - if not now, then surely retroactively. If the unseen alien race in 2001: A Space Odyssey had been thoughtful enough to equip the monoliths with MP3 players, Tarot Sport would've been the album preloaded with it.

91
A.V. Club

For most of the songs amassed here, it still takes around 10 minutes to get the job done—threading those thick synthesizer blasts and all that skittering digital manna through a brick wall of guitar fuzz—but Fuck Buttons succeeds at turning its unpredictable epics into masterpieces of pacing and strange beauty.

90
Drowned in Sound

Tarot Sport doesn’t pause to bang or whimper. Tarot Sport accelerates.

90
Consequence of Sound

Tarot Sport is not better nor worse than Street Horrrsing. It’s just another example that Fuck Buttons is more than just a musical substitute/addition for illegal hallucinogenic substances or refreshing innovators of the noise genre. Fuck Buttons is a musical catharsis without equivalent.

90
God Is in the TV
It's certainly another late '00s album: challenging, again, but unquestionably enjoyable too.
90
musicOMH

Such are the music's joyous highs, subtle thrills and rich and deep layers, they can undoubtedly be judged one of the most worthwhile and special bands currently at large.

90
Pitchfork
The second full-length from this noisy Bristol duo is more accessible than their first but sacrifices none of that record's visceral power.
85
XLR8R
Fuck Buttons‘ second album is an hour-long psychedelic workout that sounds like a singular complete thought—one hypnotic rhythm section and one batch of refried, melodic white noise from start to finish
84
Paste

On their sophomore album, Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power have carved some holes in the abrasive, percussive wall of sound that made Street Horrrsing at once memorable and difficult, and they’ve patched things up with atmospheric samples ... that sound downright triumphant.

80
The Telegraph

Tarot Sport is weird, dark, psychedelic, unlike any techno you may have heard before, but also deliriously enjoyable, transmitting all the sweaty energy of their live gigs.

80
Spectrum Culture

The listening experience is exponentially easier than that of 2008’s Street Horrrsing, a change that may alienate die-hards in search of a new challenge, but one that will ultimately widen this avant duo’s fan base.

80
Mojo

If Street Horrsing was a bit of a lark, then Tarot Sport plays an altogether more serious game.

80
Uncut

Andrew Weatherall has been employed to help build Tarot Sport a beaty backbone and the results are brutally mesmerizing.

80
The Guardian
Fuck Buttons have less in common with the overly cerebral noise boffins they're compared to and more with the likes of Ennio Morricone: sonic explorers mapping out the landscape's emotional terrain, albeit one that exists in some far-off galaxy.
80
Slant Magazine

Tarot Sport makes its mark: easy and challenging at the same time, a mix of harsh and smooth sounds that mirrors the prickly juxtaposition of classic jazz.

80
Q Magazine

With Tarot Sport, Fuck Buttons have made a career-defining album that will resonate with anyone who has ever spent a night with their head in the speaker stacks and gone home marvelling at the ringing in their ears.

80
Resident Advisor

Tarot Sport allows us to look at techno as the emblem of a populist experimental art, one that is open to new ideas but can connect viscerally with its audience at the same time.

80
NME
Whereas Mogwai’s more recent work threatens to make a formula familiar, Fuck Buttons’ fizzling DIY laboratory still has the invention and ingenuity to surprise.
80
AllMusic

A more hypnotic and lulling ride overall, Tarot Sport may lack some of Street Horrrsing's pure visceral impact, but it's just as satisfying on its own terms, as well as an impressive step forward for Fuck Buttons.

80
Tiny Mix Tapes

For about an hour, if you can allow Fuck Buttons to control your responses, to embrace the clusterfuck of noise and emotion, then Tarot Sport might be one of the strongest albums of this year.

70
PopMatters

There are ... occasional stumbles that suggest that some lessons cannot be learned quickly, and that melody is an essential component of their sound that needs more attention. For now, though, this is much better.

60
Under the Radar

Tarot Sport is an act of patience that pays back the time you actively spend with it.

60
Beats Per Minute
The once fierce waves of distortion made soft around the edges and then reduced to the incredibly bland soft-loud-soft formula, and the pulverizing beats made into hands-in-the-air bog standard samples.
60
No Ripcord
The album definitely has its moments, and the first half is very engaging, but they lose it in the long run.
WhatTheFunk
72

"I'm sorry Godspeed You Black Emperor, your shit is good, but Surf Solar's Fuck Buttons is one of the best ten minutes song of all time, OF ALL TIME!!!! " shouted a young fucked up man, probably a Pitchfork guy.

And he's not really wrong. Because listening to these ten delicious minutes where the rise is a priesthood, where the wall of sound is a commandment... we couldn't describe better this "Surf Solar" which introduces the 2nd album of the Fuck Buttons. Of course it was ... read more

Houdanny
81

Olympians is an 11/10 song, and I still feel as though that's not positive enough.

EPTIT
100

Fuck Buttons #2: Esperanza, sueño, el despertar luego del sufrimiento. 6:45 P.M.

(84 to 100, wow)

De un 84 a un 100, de un rating promedio a un rating perfecto, ¿Qué pasó aquí? ¿Cuándo esto se volvió una bestia musical completamente increíble?

Bueno, es una historia personal, un poco analítica, y sin duda, bastante gloriosa, ya que considero a este disco como la mejor obra que he escuchado en el mundo de la ... read more

ShoegazeJake
100

I love fuck buttons

Hwillems99
85

This is the tutorial on how to layer music. However, could've achieved the same result in less time.

AnorLonwa
83

the noisy synths blend well with the emotional melodies, creating an extremely intense listen. It requires commitment, but its a rewarding listen

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