4 out of 5

Label: Matador

Producer: Doug Easley (engineer), Fuck

Because Fuck typify a certain type of indie rock that slips through various genres, never quite keeping a straight face or letting a full-on grin show… it’s sorta’ hard to pitch a review.  But certainly some of the group’s discs are more successful than others, and it generally comes down to balance – something that applies to most bands, most genres.  The Fuck albums that swing toward too silly or too serious never quite felt spot-on, and ‘Conduct’ only suffers when it loses the thread a bit about midway through.  Overall, though, from the kooky packaging to the half-in half-out results, this is a pretty full representation of what the group has to offer.

A little bit less than the first third of the album is spot on.  Varying between energetic, vaguely funny tracks (The poppy tune of opener ‘The Thing’ and its cryptic ‘Gimme a dime, I’ve got a quarter, gonna’ call The Thing from the phone on the corner,’ line properly setting the tone) and baldly honest morose tunes like ‘Drinking Artist,’ we also get a good sample of the clever way Tim Prudhomme’s lyrics can slip between generic sweetness and subtle sadness within a song – ‘Italy’ and ‘Laundry Shop’ prime examples.  But track 7’s ‘My Melting Snowman’ – an inoffensive keyboard ditty – breaks the pattern a bit, allowing the group’s other love, sloppy punk rock, to manifest for a couple tracks (‘Alice, All I Want is Alice’ and ‘Stupid Band’).  These are good songs, but they demystify things a bit and make the next few tracks less impactful than they might otherwise have been (which is a shame, since the track after ‘Band’ – ‘Never Comin’ Back’ – is one of the group’s most truthfully affecting).  But our pace recovers for closers ‘Gone’ and ‘Blind Beauty,’ the latter wrapping things on a truly pleasant note that can be wonderfully followed by circling back to the beginning.

‘Conduct’ is probably the best starter disc for ‘Fuck’, as it covers a pretty good range of their styles and at near their bests in each, with a very clean production sheen from the group and Easley.  That it lacks any true standouts (thanks, in part, to its sequencing) is what keeps it from being perfect, but its such a well-rounded, repeatable listen that that criticism shouldn’t prevent you from putting it on… right… now…