Fuck – Pardon My French – Review

Fuck

Pardon My French (Matador)
by Nik Rainey

This band is so good, so melodically assured and invitingly pretty, that I can’t for the life of me figure out why they’re not big, big stars. It’s not like I haven’t tried to spread the word: when someone comes to me looking for a quiet, contemplative change from all the loud, brutal clobber-punk and whine-core out there, my answer is always the same – “Get Fuck ed!” I keep writing Casey Kasem asking him to send out a Long Distance Dedication to various girls I’ve dated, kissed or merely saw across a crowded room, this band’s music having a tendency to make me feel all wistful and tender inside, with one simple message: “This Fuck’s for you!” But he has yet to do it, although I swear I’ve heard him say the name before. Pardon My French has sixteen songs – that’s a lot of Fuck to go around – every one them an impressive miniature full of folky strums, fragile vocals, and a fleet-fingered sense of construction that seems almost too casual until you realize how well it holds together. I can’t see how anybody could hear the way this band conjures up both whispered intimacies and wide-open spaces and not proudly proclaim themself a full-fledged Fuckhead for all the world to hear. Perhaps they could use a nice quotable plaudit to drum up interest, so I hereby give Matador permission to use the following on handbills, billboards, and heavy-saturation radio spots: “If music were breakfast cereal, I’d eat a bowl of Fuck every day!”
(625 Broadway #1004 New York, NY 10012)