Bristolians Fuck Buttons arrive with a weight of expectation after the critically acclaimed Street Horrrsing. Despite dividing opinion on quite how groundbreaking they really were, the foundations were laid for a promising forage leftfield. disappointingly, it seems little progress has been made in the interim between albums.

‘Surf Solar’ starts promisingly with Zomby style 8 bit bleeps and rhythmic ticks cribbed from Black Dice, but soon devolves into a by numbers rehash of their previous output; a theme with disappointingly few reprieves. ‘Space Mountain’ rides a gnarly rollercoaster rhythm but ducks out of meeting its full potential by regressing into an endlessly looping post rock refrain, never really justifying its near nine minute length. Elsewhere ‘Phantom Limb’ is a pointless retread of sonic territory This Heat pitched 31 years previously with ‘24 Track Loop’.

Despite Fuck Buttons’ drone being drawn back in favour of danceability, they’re still yet to write a piece of music evocative of anything but “urgency”. Combined with their inability to structure tracks in any way besides an unclimaxing slow rise in intensity you begin to get the feeling that each track is a reprise of the last.

Despite this, with Andrew Weatherill on production duties Tarot Sport does sound gorgeous from top to bottom. Even where ideas start to wane, synths positively shimmer and the whole album is bolstered with ear pleasing levels of bass. The combination of drawn out, high pitched synths and a new danceable slant does sometimes evoke the horror of some Mogwai flavoured Swedish House Mafia, but Weatherill is almost certainly Tarot Sport’s saving grace.

With hindsight, any dismissal of debut Street Horrrsing was because they never lived up to the image of paradigm smashers forced upon them, which now seems besides the point. The fact that their follow-up is equally unfuturistic isn’t the problem. Even removing that burden from them it’s apparent they’re still struggling to move past the first ideas that worked for them; even the greatest track in the world will feel tired in its 10th permutation.

Simon Docherty