Holy Fuck: Latin

By Spencer Kornhaber | May 11, 2010 | 5:00am

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To get a sense for what Holy Fuck does, check the video for “Latin America,” the first single from the band’s third album. It’s composed of tour footage, landscape shots, and guys jumping into the water—all turned poetic when paired with music and edited with an eye for artiness. It’s cool stuff, but hardly novel. The same goes for Holy Fuck’s recorded output, which comes from a live band—no laptops allowed—approximating the sound of sinister, skittering electronica. Half the time, it comes off like extremely proficient session musicians covering The Chemical Brothers in a garage. But Latin is blessedly diverse, with each track tapping into a different tempo and marked by dance-floor-ready rationing of tension.

While nothing here is as jaw-dropping as the breakout 2007 single “Lovely Allen,” there are plenty of grin-worthy moments—though they’re often paired with material that’s frustratingly derivative. Look no further than the opening two songs for an example: “One” is four minutes of rote, ambient crescendo seemingly ripped from some ’90s techno-horror soundtrack, but it drops unexpectedly into the strutting porno boogie “Red Lights.” The transition into an uncharted genre for the band provides a neat surprise as well as a reminder that, in the studio, Holy Fuck could afford to control its chaos a little less.