Let’s talk about cursing. It’s so easy to blunder a naughty epithet – there’s the temptation to go funny, like Shit Robot or The Exploding Fuck Dolls. Alternatively, too much foul language in a band name and the audience will think you’re flippant with your four-letter words. There’s a science to cuss names, and Holy Fuck hold a PhD. What a great name – Holy Fuck – jocularly menacing, without being childishly aggressive. Unfortunately, “holy fuck” are two words you won’t utter after listening to Latin. More likely, your response will be, “fuck, I expected better,” or “dammit, I wish I had spent those $13 on a live show instead of this album.”

Holy Fuck are like the anti-Girl Talk. While GT brings little more than his body, his laptop, and the occasional toilet paper cannon to his shows, these guys create electronic music without the typical “electronics.” Holy Fuck form the gritty blip beats of their genre sans loop pedals, samplers, or sequencers; just your good ol’ fashioned, olde timey guitar, bass, drums, and maybe a keyboard and some toys. They’re like innovative hobos scrapping together a home out of odd-shaped tin and soggy cardboard refrigerator boxes. Except instead of smelling like piss and asking for change, Holy Fuck produce low tech, high octane music.

This is a group whose reputation precedes them. Their live shows are amazing–the band using random objects to accompany their routine instruments, Holy Fuck operate like a mix of rock band, Stomp performers and some sort of pre-digital Kraftwerk. So when they release an album, you want these nut jobs to go balls to the walls, you want to see that energy and improvisational insanity recorded and set down for history, and for your speakers’ enjoyment. Latin, however, is a tad sterile. All the band members seem too in control of their almost predictable sound. It’s not that they’re holding back, it’s that the music sounds apathetic.

Not a track of Latin passed without me asking myself, “where have I heard this before?” It’s normal for bands to occasionally crib their predecessors’ sound, but on songs like “MD,” all I could think was Sigur Ros. The long silence, soft whimpering, then slow progression of the song was gorgeous – but I wanted it to scream, or at least whisper, “Holy Fuck,” not sound like an Icelandic soundtrack to Buffalo Bill lowering the lotion in the basket. That’s not to say this album isn’t enjoyable. It’s fantastic as background music; but for active listening, it’s just slightly above mediocre.

Holy Fuck go rock on Latin. There’s a heavy undertone of “normal” rock structuring: the guitar intro, slow cymbal introduction, and a few licks of bass before all three join in unison. “Silva & Grimes” even has a distinctive classic rock vibe. Even with the glitchy beginning, “Lucky”’s repetitive and spacey airs feel almost… proggy. Holy Fuck don’t hang out in that arena too long though. For most of its length, Latin sounds like the bastard child between Radiohead and Sigur Ros – if that child was abandoned and eventually raised by Canadians. Holy Fuck’s take on electronic, noise, and rock is almost too structured, too polite. Oh, Canada.

There are three standout tracks on Latin. First, for all you ‘70s pimp wanna-be’s who are undecided on what music to play when walking the streets to collect dough from yo’ hos, try “Red Lights.” It opens with a funk beat that only gets thicker and more bass-heavy as the song progresses, throwing in some disco ala mid ‘00s. “Sht Mtn,” besides having a snickery name, is blip/glitch delicious. Holy Fuck opened up for M.I.A. on one tour, and that perhaps inspired this track, which carries a riff either her or LCD Soundsystem would drool over. At times, “Sht Mtn” sounds like it’s staring down the line between good electronica and eurotrash, but Holy Fuck skate that line masterfully. Finally we’ve got the album ender “P.I.G.S.” This track is what I expected from all of Latin: fast and wild, with a bit of humor. The synth noise and rock beat sounds like it’s made for a video game fight scene. “P.I.G.S.” is where the please and thank yous are met with fuck yous and a K.O. punch. Every time I play this track I imagine one of the Mortal Kombat characters pumping up to kill a flaming skeleton.

The third album from this Toronto foursome is definitely worth a cursory listen–but your money is probably better spent seeing these dudes flip their experimental shit live. And if you’re too lazy or hard-up for cash to do even that, just check out our interview with these wild and crazy guys here.

Track List:
1. MD
2. Red lights
3. Latin America
4. Stay Lit
5. Silva & Grimes
6. SHT MTN
7. Stilettos
8. Lucky
9. P.I.G.S.