Review of 'Ö' by Fcukers

The New York dance duo’s debut album, Ö, is a squirming clew of earworms.

Fcukers want you to believe that they don’t give a fcuk. Everything about them feels almost aggressively nonchalant – their songs rarely ever exceed three minutes, Shanny’s voice barely rises beyond a semi-spoken whisper and their videos all look like they were filmed spontaneously on a phone in one take.

But it takes a certain degree of giving a fcuk to write EDM tracks that are this hooky. Both former indie rock artists, Shanny Wise and Jackson Walker Lewis formed Fcukers after getting tired of all that ‘indie shit’,wanting instead to explore ‘beats or dubstep’. There doesn’t appear to be any dubstep on this album, but they do experiment with an array of other dance music styles and they execute each one to a high level.

Most of the tracks are house anthems with addictive loopy synths and basslines. But the duo also venture into UK garage on ‘Butterflies’, drum and bass on ‘Play Me’ and even reggae on ‘TTYGF’. There’s a 00s UK EDM flavour to much it that is so authentic that I’m convinced Fcukers are secretly British. Other moments feel heavily inspired by Billie Eilish and FINNEAS (opener ‘Beatback’ has a very ‘Bad Guy’ vibe to it).

While this album is dance music through-and-through, Shanny’s detached breathy vocals still feel very indie, which gives Fcukers a distinct sound. And there is an indie rawness to each beat – it feels like EDM for an intimate house party rather than a lavish superclub, with tracks favouring immediate transitions and dry electronica over giant build-ups and copious reverb.

The one aspect of this album that perhaps feels a bit too basic is the lyrics. Sometimes there’s a charm to getting straight to the point: ‘if you want to party come over to my house’. But at other points they can feel completely redundant: ‘I like it like that cos I like it like that’. Still, their method of keeping things simple and catchy definitely works when it comes to the beats and melodies, and gives Ö so much replay value that it’s likely to rank high in my top albums of the year list.

★★★★☆

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