Holy Fuck: Latin

Label: Young Turks

If you're like me, then you took one look at this Canadian band's name a few years ago and dismissed them immediately as attention-hungry party-mooks. Well, as their third album, Latin, proves, they might be all that stuff, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're dismissible. Latin, the first Holy Fuck album in three years, is full of sleekly groovy instrumentals built with standard rock gear and electronics. The really cool thing is these Fucks never try to draw undue attention to that fact -- they're just pumping out the soundtrack jams with the tools they wanna use. And as simple as the music is, there's something tricky going on inside it: "Silva & Grimes" is a gracefully loping tune that makes you think of highway-driving but somehow avoids any Krautrock vibe. "Red Lights" resembles Ratatat in a good way, an open-source tune that seems to call for a vocalist but, lacking one, develops its own voice anyway. Cool trick there! And that's the lesson to Latin: There's much more here than meets the eye. (Bosco)