Review Summary: Screechy, skronky post-punk. Pretty dynamic-less, but good overall.
Arab on Radar was an intimidating band, the music was abrasive, vocals squeaked and squawked, the lyrics were vulgar. They even had an album called ‘Rough Day at the Orifice.’
If I knew what an orifice was when I first listened to Arab, I might have just stopped there. I didn’t though, so I listened and enjoyed, perhaps on a basis of pure camp as, looking back, I don’t see how I really could have liked AoR back then.
But I listened to ‘Yahweh or the Highway’ last week and almost vomited.
It was pretty good.
Chinese Stars’ singer, Eric Paul, was in Arab on Radar. His vocals still sound the same with this newer band, maybe a little more agreeable with the ears though. The music is as well, but to an even further extent, the dynamics are still the same, trebly guitars, thick, low bass, and skittering drums. Like Minutemen maybe, but completely different: weirder, slower, and, in the case of The Chinese Stars, it’s far more danceable. Paul is far less fond of ‘dirty’ words here, but the songs still evoke grimy, sleazy imagery. Just listen to the lyrics to ‘Cheap City Halo’:
“I came here tonight with my cheap city halo/Looking for a dirty angel/I came here tonight when my skin turned into wood/From the frostbite of her motherhood”.
I mentioned Minutemen earlier, and I really do hear a bit of post-punk influence here. Particularly on Electrodes in Captivity, where the prominent bass and pangs of repetitive guitar squall recall early Public Image Limited, a comparison that could be applied to the whole album (the one I’m reviewing is called A Rare Sensation, since I haven’t already mentioned it.) Other tracks, Panic to the Population especially, have a bounce similar to that of Mika Miko, with a new kind of abrasion tossed in (after all, this is a “noise” band). Possibly the most musically interesting track on the album comes in the form of (Love) and the Electric Chair. The grooves lock together well, and the bass really finds a great voice. Paul’s vocals sneer perfectly, but the listener will find himself more entranced with the hooks created by the instruments than anything the singer is doing.
But, as with most intentionally offensive albums, A Rare Sensation kind of overstays its welcome (despite only being a half hour long.) The majority of the tracks follow an intensely repetitive, dance-y formula that gets on one’s nerves after a while. However, it’s hard to find too big a fault in Chinese Stars’ sound otherwise. Some records just pull it off better than others I guess.
-Joe
