Fcukers – 'Ö'
For a band sold as New York's next great party-starters, much of the debut album from Fcukers feels oddly undercooked
Significantly buzzed New York outfit Fcukers have been held beneath a portable heat lamp of hype. On debut album 'Ö', the duo commit to a kind of 90s-coded insouciance: lethargic vocals draped over a club-ready chassis and an occasionally unconvincing refusal to try too hard. For a band sold as the city’s next great party-starters, a lot of 'Ö' feels oddly undercooked.
Beatback is the clearest case: a trace of Timberlake’s Señorita and a local-club-night bounce that so lacks in momentum that even singer Shanny Wise sounds bored by it. L.U.C.K.Y fares better, a hazed-out 303 thrum with Justice-adjacent bite and an adhesive hook. Elsewhere, the law of diminishing returns arrives early: Butterflies circles melodic ideas already spent while I Like It Like That stretches a corny 90s radio-dance pastiche past the point of any meaningful irony. TTYGF throws a smear of dancehall grime at an otherwise sanitised palette, but the cobwebs don't shake.
When Fcukers actually apply pressure, the record sharpens. if you wanna party, come over to my house turns Kenny Beats' production muscular, its hook grinding against a slow-build of more aggressive house. Closer Feel the Real lands in a surprisingly lush trip-hop hush, standing as the convincing reason for the sequencing of an album proper at all.
Listen to: if you wanna party, come over to my house, Feel the Real, Play Me