Holy Fuck – LP

Desperate not to appear on too many posters, Holy Fuck command the ears first and the brain second. Following the relative low-level acclaim of 2005’s 100% improvised, 100% eponymous EP, their debut album ‘LP’ runs an uber-hardcore gauntlet. They’re the evil twins of Chk Chk Chk, with less sex and more death, interrupting the family reunion with krautrockers Neu! and Can with a succession of hammers, tribal rhythms and ultra-distorted Casio instruments.

Their 2004 effort showed a grounding in 1980s home synthesiser rhythm tracks and ‘LP’ begins to veer away into a more free-form, yet frenetically structured percussive juggernaut. ‘Lovely Allen’ sounds like a blissed up Sigur Ros falling down a big well and clearly loving it, but moments of friendliness are few and far between. ‘Milkshake’, a much more representative racket, evokes The Go! Team hitting Stock, Aitken AND Waterman over the head with bricks.

It’s not surprising that Holy Fuck have had dalliances with Chk Chk Chk, Do Make Say Think, Cornelius and a long list of other electro-based forward thinkers. 1am floor-filler it isn’t, but ‘LP’ never bothers to wander down that avenue. What this Toronto-based supergroup offer is an electrically funky, beat-driven racket, as humourous in its devices as the toytown tendencies of Kid Carpet and as relentless as the pioneering No-Wave rumble of Liquid Liquid. Call it what you like – it’s very, very good. Too good for asterisks.