Enlisting radical US veterans Lee Ranaldo and Jello Biafra, alongside the rising era of insurgent poets, political exiles and roots-rock revolutionaries solid through the Arab Spring, polyglot Parisians Al-Qasar whip up a globalised psych-rock storm on this gutsy debut. The band invoice their self-styled “Arabian Fuzz” sound as an genuine snapshot of multicultural Paris in 2022: this loosely interprets as an agreeably dirty mongrelised mixtape of punk, grunge and garage-rock signifiers interwoven with gnawa, rai and desert blues influences, all overlaid with Arabic and Berber-language lyrics.
Al-Qasar had been shaped by guitarist and oud participant Thomas Attar Bellier, a veteran of assorted psych and prog-metal bands, and someday collaborator with feted Center Jap artists like Emel Mathlouthi. The mission started as a extra fluid collective that includes Bellier alongside numerous buddies, principally poets from the Arab world. They recorded their first EP, Miraj, in Cairo. However as this debut album started to take form, the lineup solidified right into a extra conventional rock group primarily based in Paris, fronted by Moroccan vocalist Jaouad El Garouge. Each stay and on file, Al-Qasar current as a reasonably conservative set-up with drums, bass, guitars, leather-based jackets, sun shades and wild facial hair. However there are extra experimental post-rock drones and avant-metal textures buried within the combine too, amd a wealthy array of Center Jap and North African devices like the electrical saz, bendir, darbuka and sagat.
Al-Qasar’s earliest rehearsals and stay exhibits passed off in Barbès, a grungy, un-gentrified, traditionally Arab district of Paris. Certainly, they pay tongue-in-cheek tribute to the realm right here with the doomy, propulsive, swampy observe “Barbès Barbès”. Wealthy in theatrical drama and ironic humour, this lyrical paean to low-rent lives and illicit events additionally options feted Franco-Algerian oud participant Mehdi Haddab of Pace Caravan fame, whose lengthy record of earlier collaborators embody legendary rai icon Rachid Taha and Damon Albarn’s Africa Specific collective.
Bellier initially contacted Ranaldo via mutual buddies with the thought of recording collectively in Sonic Youth’s New York studio, however Covid received in the way in which. As a substitute, the veteran guitar-mangler despatched over a mountain of remedies, which feed onto two of the album’s stand-outs. The brief opening instrumental “Awtar Al Sharq” is a mood-setting swirl of plucked strings, drones and stormy clatter. However the extra muscular, expansive “Awal” is a full-blooded set-piece anthem, with an incantatory Arabic lyric that builds from guttural growl to siren howl, its propulsive overdriven rhythm sounding virtually like a Franco-Maghrebian variant of krautrock.
Bellier’s connections to US punk godfather Jello Biafra, as a former member of his someday backing band Spindrift, additionally repay right here with “Ya Malak”, a coldly livid rant towards political corruption and social inequality laid over a punchy, percussive tangle of strings, drums and strings. Initially sounding fuzzy and distant, then boomingly shut, Biafra’s signature blowtorch scorn makes a superb match for the spoken-word lyric by Egyptian revolutionary poet Ahmed Fouad Negm, an auspicious automobile for his debut English translation. “Who’re they and who’re we?” Biafra howls. “They’re the emirs and they’re the sultans… they put on the newest fashions, however we stay seven in a single room”.
Though Who Are We? is a reasonably testosterone-heavy affair, a number of of the strongest tracks are pushed by feminine vocalists and feminist-slanted messages. Outwardly a romantic music, the percussive, kinetic, feverish “Hobek Thawrat” options Sudanese-American siren Alsarah – aka Sarah Mohamed Abunama-Elgadi, the daughter of political exiles and human rights activists – who garments her name for revolution again house within the wily ambiguous language of affection poetry. In the meantime, mighty nearer “Mal Wa Jamal” showcases Egyptian vocalist Hend Elrawy, who paints an empathetic portrait of intercourse staff over a bass-throbbing, string-plucking, centrifugal racket that invokes Primal Scream of their future-punk prime.
In locations, Al-Qasar nonetheless sound just like the embryonic work in progress that they’re, whereas Who Are We? is usually let down by its oddly staid religion within the bludgeoning ethical pressure of declamatory, sloganeering urchin-rock. Alien magnificence, pop glamour and wild new sonic horizons can be revolutionary voices for change. However there’s a wholesome unfold of sense-rupturing potential and exhilarating skronk right here, from the petrochemical protest anthem “Benzine” to the funky, discordant instrumental “Sham System”. Bellier and his gang will not be reinventing the wheel, however they’re making a potent racket with gusto, ardour and funky outlaw swagger.
