Providence, Rhode Island's Arab on Radar are the musical equivalent of a pack of
rabid vultures. They circle around you with a crazed look in their eyes,
foam spewing from the corners of their mouths, as they wait for just the
right moment to pounce. You hardly move an inch before they hit you -- a
deliberate and vicious attack consisting of two guitars, vocals and
drums, that will leave you paralyzed with fear and feeling as though you
have been flung into some gigantic intergalactic dung heap, never to
return to the surface. That, in a nutshell, is what Arab on Radar are
all about: pure distilled evil.
Yahweh or the Highway, their fourth album, is a complete and utter
train-wreck -- a blinding 24-minute tour de force that will
leave you feeling sullied, helpless and frightened...yet also oddly rejuvenated. While many bands seem to rely on hit-and-run guerilla warfare, Arab on Radar specializes in a frighteningly direct and
downright brutal invasion of your auditory senses.
Somehow they make you feel all warm and cozy, even as they kick your teeth
down your throat with wave after wave of twin, distortion-saturated
guitars, psychotic vocals and beats that sound as if they were laid
down by Satan himself. But as they charm you to your face, their
perverse instincts run wild, as songs like "Semen on the Mount" and
"Birth Control Blues" make abundantly clear. These are some seriously
disturbed individuals who would as soon shit on your hand as shake
it. Their penchant for perversity is matched only by their love of
chaos-laden musical clatter ("My Mind is a Muffler") and clever,
Gadjits-like song titles ("Father, Son, and the Goalie Post").
They continue to shock and amaze with the rasping and
blasphemous "God is Dad", and hint at their narcotic-fueled past
(present?) on the full-blown musical melee that is "Cocaine Mummy".
Some might argue that Arab on Radar are not musicians, but a
circus sideshow attraction with guitars. Those people are certainly
entitled to their opinion. But even if you toss all their gimmickry
and perverseness aside, Arab on Radar are still the epitome of fucking
balls out rock ‘n fucking roll. Are they the last hard men? You bet
your sweet ass they are.
