Quarashi – Jinx (Sony)
Reviewed by Sadie O., 8/25/06
“Poor man’s Beastie Boys” – from Reykjavik. Obviously not a particularly new or original sound, but done extremely well. Lots of heavy metal guitars, lots of dope beats, lots of rapping (3 vocalists).
FCC self-censored, but you should still listen before you play, there’s a lot of iffy bits. In English, but mostly very difficult to make out. Hard to pick favorites – I really like most tracks a lot.
1. 3:25 ***funky hard rock beat, several rappers, scratching.
2. 4:10 **sounds like an old Latin record, with the cool midtempo bassheavy beat coming in slowly. Sung chorus.
3. 3:40 ***serious funky bass, some heavy metal riffs. Lots of changes, including spoken boat safety announcement for last 20 seconds of song.
4. 3:38 **midtempo relaxed beat, sung raps, rather Parliament-style chorus. FCCs appear to be self-censored, except “whole damn day”…
5. 2:51 ***another cool midtempo beat, raps en masse, girl singing chorus.
6. 3:53 ***downtempo heavy fugging metal, suckas!
7. 3:55 *midtempo, kind of a grunge sound. Lots of questionable possible FCCs.
8. 3:38 **midtempo, spare heavy metal beat, rappers take turns (one kinda screams), some really nice bass bits.
9. 3:21 ***beat sounds constructed by banging on pots. Midtempo, all sorts of styles, great simple chorus.
10. 2:55 *heavy metal – given the title, it’s unsurprisingly self-censored half to death.
11. 4:01 midtempo relaxed, PRETTY groove – kinda disarming… Vocals are sung.
12. 2:25 **midtempo beat, but veering almost to experiemental/electronica.