4 out of 5

Label: Smells Like

Produced by: Fuck, Doug Easley

Cupid’s Cactus was the first Fuck album I had the pleasure of buying as it came out.  I remember delighting in the horribly dumb artwork as the blend of silly-sweet snarky slice-of-life on their previous discs was right up my alley, and Cupid’s stupid cover seemed like confirmation of more to come.  To my surprise, the disc was… good.  I mean, I’d gotten significant spin time out of earlier albums, so I would call those good as well.  But I felt like you could play Cupid to a larger audience and they might think it was something from their NPR-supported silly-sweet catalogue.  The band’s appealing sneer was still there, the presentation just felt smoothed out a bit.  Which – as I mix my descriptors up here – allows the start of the disc to hit like a pleasant punch.  ‘Pardon My French’ had a similarly strong start but it relies on a literal alarm bell sound to grab your attention; ‘Cupid’ opens with the trick of a great song – ‘Glass Charms’ – which is everything Fuck is awesome at: a slightly funny, slightly sad narrative, head-bobbing guitar line, a grooving bass, and crisp drums.  It’s pretty perfect.  From there we get the interestingly choppy interlude ‘High,’ before another dour pop hit with ‘Someday Aisle.’  A similar pattern continues throughout, trading softer moments (‘San Jacinto’) for sudden toe-tapping (‘Awright’) or, uh, doo-wop (‘It’s Unbelievable’) with those Fucky slow-core tracks (‘Panties Off’) and the random upbeat riff from nowhere (‘Oshún’).  Despite all of these very, very recognizable elements, ‘Cactus’ doesn’t quite have the staying power through the whole album as ‘Conduct’ or ‘French’ because every piece feels like its in its proper place.  That’s not to say that those previous discs were sloppy or impromptu, but there was a jammy aspect that’s not as apparent on this album.  It’s not explicitly a bad thing, and this probably is the best, bite-sized disc if you just want to give someone one Fuck album.  But the tuneful band with the vulgar name has obviously grown up, and shrugged off some appealing rough edges.