Cupid's Cactus

After releasing two CDs on their own, two more through Matador, and a cottage industry's worth of singles and comp appearances, Fuck, the band, has come to SLR to release their latest full-length album, "Cupid's Cactus." With stylistic nods to out-rock architects like Can and Meat Puppets, and a pop sense that owes as much to the Platters as the Pixies, the album hazily unfolds its majestic mojo in a 35-minute, 15-song serenade of soulful indie rock. The production boasts a bone-dry intimacy, and the performances -- twin-guitar click-and-drone, whispered vox, and unique hat-bass dances -- make the band's best case yet for the supremacy of subtlety, space, and inspired song-sense within the rock idiom.