The Chinese Stars - 'Cheap City Halo' / 'The Girl Of Las Vegas' (Artrocker)
3/5
By: Kevin Molloy
When a man stands wielding a guitar you do not expect it to start making noises you most closely associate with a modem. Perhaps more significantly - you don't expect the insistent dialling tones to sound fantastic. Just so, however, is the riffage to the six-string experimentation that is screechingly perfected on this double A-side.
The other points to the Chinese Stars are less abrasive, although no less pointed; the bass and drums funkify the proceedings, with tight, simplistic rhythms and danceable grooves. Whilst the vocals struggle to hold your attention for more than a line, what they lack lyrically they more than compensate for in a languid anger, an apathetic energy.
This aural cocktail (of the lethal sort) is perpetually arresting, but it's the guitar workings of Paul Vieira that will provide the deadly accuracy of the oriental weapons, aimed directly towards the jugular of 'popular' music.
Artists in this article: The Chinese Stars
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