Sunday, 30 May 2010

THE LOCUST/ARAB ON RADAR – SPLIT SINGLE (GOLD STANDARD LABORATORIES)


THE LOCUST/ARAB ON RADAR – SPLIT SINGLE (GOLD STANDARD LABORATORIES)

This is a handsome and grotesque release all in one shot.  There is a beauty in gore and noise and here are two bands that cleverly tap into that notion while attempting to make you go deaf and bloody your ears.  Housed on a seven inch shaped like a splat of puke (and with a similar colouring of texture) you just feel you cannot lose with such sickly packaged music.  You can only lose your hearing.

The Locust are just frightening.  I saw them once and never again.  It was one of the most violent pits I have ever fallen into, one that filled me with such aggression and violence that I started kicking out and attempting to hurt people for stepping on my toes.  I was in the wrong.  Meanwhile on stage creatures resembling insects barely moved while producing the most devastating of sounds.  They were flattening all they were coming in contact with.  For this split single their side of the record contains five tracks, the longest of which clocks in at forty three seconds.  Indeed some of their song titles feel longer than the actual tracks themselves (“Wet Nurse Syndrome Hand Me Down Display Case” and “Spitting In The Faces Of Fools As A Source Of Nutrition” being the best examples).  I was wrong to think this was music to dance to.

In contrast the free noise of Arab On Radar is somewhat more harnessed.  There is repetition to frame proceedings, a repetition that resembles a pulse.  The guitars do not sound like guitars, the drums sound cheap and broken and then when the vocals finally drop in suddenly it all sounds very Melt-Banana in a most agreeable manner.  It all feels like music constructed from bloodied lab coats.  The experiment went wrong but the results were great.  The final conclusion: your music is too fat.

Today I find myself playing this record at ear-splitting volume with view to drowning out my neighbour’s shit selection of Madonna hits and other chart mediocrity.  It is a resounding soundclash, one in which I am unlikely to emerge the victor as a scene akin to the annoyance of Driller Killer abounds and sadly the state of affairs descends to complete antisocial mobility.  One day they will die.

Thesaurus moment: overall.

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