Kominas
“Sharia Law in the USA”
I loved the start of this song with that spooky sorta Raiders of the Lost Arc sound going on and the segway into the hardcore sound then it flips again into a freaking finger snapping lounge act? If this is the Kominas way of expressing confusion they’re doing a bang up job. Cuz it confused the hell out of me. Too many genres entangled. But I can handle that no problem by living in the moment but what completely shut me off on this…The lyrics. I have a feeling they were trying to be funny but really its not. Im not a fan of Weird Al either. Id bundle the two together on this. Lets call it Weird All with a beard. What a shame. For the record I have zero political sway here. I’m not a hater I’m a music enthusiast. That’s all so if anyone reading this is going to say I hate it due to political reasons you’re way off. Lets leave it there.
BUT I can say that the exploitation of culture is really lame. Could it be that these musicians not able to find a way to get some notoriety on merit have opted to play the “scandalous” card? WTF.. still a fail.
“Suicide Bomb the Gap”
I love the title and I absolutely adore the fact that they sample old war PSAs and apparently they do to as it was done in Sharia Law as well.
I like the vibe in this one and I love the background sounds. I absolutely hate the vocals and the back up vocals. So I listened a few times. Trying to block out the vocalist and his screeches. Viola’ The slight rap section midway is actually cool. Its the singing that sucks. I also opted not to listen to the lyrics. Why? Again, not a weird Al fan. I don’t like the parody crap.
I will say musically this is a win. But someone needs to run and steal their microphones and they need to reconsider their lyric trend. Fun is fun but was this supposed to be a comedy album? I don’t really know. cuz its too scattered to follow.
Sometime background information on a band causes more harm than good. I listened first to these 2 songs then read an article on the band.
I’m very happy I did it in this order. Reason being is within the confines of the article Kominar member Basin Usmani is attributed to saying he:
” grew up as a “nonreligious” Muslim-American so his journey into punk caused few problems, although he admits his family doesn’t like the drinking and smoking that pervade the music scene. Khan and Kominas drummer Imran Malik, 25, also said they aren’t as observant as their families might like.
“I mean, if you put a sword to us,” said Usmani, “one of us might pray.”
Ohhh, how punk rock. Maybe I’m too old to ‘get it’, but to me its rather ridiculous exploitation. Vocally and lyrically weak. Musically wonderful. This may be just a niche’ trend. It wont go mass appeal in my opinion not only due to the redneck factor but because its just not any good. Iman stated they sounded like the Clash circa Sandanista? I can sense where that would come from (for the mulit genre sampling layers) but that couldnt be further from the truth. Joe spins. I would love to see them live though. I want to see the crowd they attract, and see what exactly the appeal is. Its not translating here.