The best instrumental acts make it easy for you to imagine what their frontperson might be like, if they had one. Explosions in the Sky would undoubtedly feature an earnest, heart-clutching romantic—it’s not surprising they’re as much of an influence on emo’s 4th wave as American Football. Russian Circles would present as a burly, stoic, type and even without Tyondai Braxton, Battles maintained the impish, playful charm of his vocals from Mirrored. Holy Fuck are tougher to get a read on: They were arguably electro-punk subversives at the outset; they’ve toured with M.I.A., and appeared on the Billboard Dance chart, and since 2010’s Latin, Graham Walsh has recorded Canadian acts that sound nothing like each other or Holy Fuck (METZ, Alvvays, Preoccupations). Although they actually emphasize vocals on *Congrats, *it’s somehow even harder to figure out what Holy Fuck is trying to express.
While *Latin was crisp and kinetic, Congrats *seems to take on at least some of the post-punk griminess of Walsh’s production charges. The bloodthirsty opener “Chimes Broken” emphasizes rumbling toms over snares, undulating bass over abrasive treble; first single “Tom Tom” batters the vocals in delay and echo. It’s notably similar to the fluorescent, toxic murk Liars oozed on Mess, rudimentary electronics and tribal rhythms given a high-end production sheen.
Above all else, Holy Fuck are a *rhythm *band, and much of *Congrats *has them circling back to where they started in 2005, i.e., a dance-punk band in a literal sense, trying to approximate electronic music with live instrumentation (and some non-instruments), to be as pummeling as they are danceable. *Congrats *is a record that rarely lets up, but there’s a sense of humor creeping in somewhere, mostly in the titles—on “Neon Dad,” they imagine themselves as a musclebound chillwave act and the synth-bass of “Caught Up” is a sincere homage to early-'00s DFA.
Holy Fuck never sound out of their element on *Congrats—*the most surprising addition is an acoustic guitar on the “Shimmering” interlude. But even at less than a minute, “Shimmering” somehow exposes the ultimate issue with *Congrats *and perhaps Holy Fuck as an enterprise. It’s not so much that “Shimmering” is the first time *Congrats *repeats itself—as a reprise of the earlier “Shivering,” that’s completely intentional. But as one of the final tracks, there’s the assumption that *Congrats *is meant to be consumed as a whole, that it has some kind of sonic narrative. *Congrats *isn’t incoherent in its diversity, it just never seems to build on itself—the record lacks a definitive peak, and most of the individual tracks tend to just state their main idea fairly early on. Mostly, it’s tough to specify what exactly makes Holy Fuck special or innovative at this late stage in their career, or what they're trying to do with this project besides keep things moving. Of course, that’s a high calling by itself, and maybe Holy Fuck is just the lifesaver who shows up to the party with ice and cups: though it’s functional, *Congrats is *still fun.
*Correction: Due to a tracklisting change, an earlier version of this review misidentified the song “Caught Up” as “Crapture.” It has been amended. *
