Band Of Asians - Fobby Asian Girl

Hear The Track Here

Having already steeped myself in eastern instruments and their usage, it seems funny - so many years later - to find myself reviewing loads of Asian bands (from Mid east to China and Japan) and all of them have one thing in common. To a man or woman, all of these musicians are playing western music and almost all of them surprisingly well. Having already been a devotee of Indonesia's garage band scene courtesy of Shorthand Phonetics, I was eager and ready to get some serious (although very lo-fi) rock back into the game. Band Of Asians are either a three peice or a duo but it seems sure that two of the members are Patrick Lew and Dave Arceo both from Seattle, WA - home of all things grungey. If you went by the buildup on the webpage of what Band Of Asians were about, no doubt you'll be listening already so lets join in...

To my ears - severely battered after much playing of this track let me tell you - there isn't much of a band here. In fact it appears to consist of bass (almost buried throughout), a wildly fast drumtrack (also buried throughout except right at the very end) thrashy, trashy guitars and some of the most uncomfortable singing you are likely to hear this side of Bedlam. Uh oh, you are thinking, Gilmore is about to throw his toys out of the pram. While it's true that I am refraining from really taking this track apart it still fails on so many points it will be blindingly obvious to anyone venturing a listen. Now, I know the grunge genre is supposed to be rough as a bears butt and about as tasty but this even fails the grunge test ie there being an actual song underneath it.

Production is, of course, none existent which accounts for the woeful mix, but it doesn't account for the jaggedness of the performance or the obvious sway of the arrangement. This sounds like a home made jam, and not a very good one either. So? Is that so bad? Surely Soundclick is FULL of tracks like this? Actually, surprisingly not. And that is why I feel I have to be as harsh as I am with this track. Now maybe the world has changed so much that material presented to the SC audience in this manner is now considered 'cool' or even 'retro' but I would never consider it any kind of musical achievement ESPECIALLY when you take into account the competition on Soundclick alone, never mind any other OMD or even the real world. I'll take a listen to some other tracks and hope that I am mistaken about this but...

You read the review; your choice. Me, I'll pass.