Walking with Muhammad

The Muslims – “Walking With Jesus”
(from Parasites/Walking With Jesus 7″ – pre-order here)

God, I love the Muslims! Whoa, heh heh, that sounds a little awkward. Let me back up for a second there and explain myself: I meant to say that I’m infatuated with the San Diego-based, lo-fi buzz band called The Muslims that are blowing up all over the internets. Yikes, “blowing up”; bad choice of verbs. I mean, uhm, the band that’s exploding, er, nope… receiving a lot of critical praise, or, uhm, acclaim lately. Yeah, that’ll do nicely. So, you got that? I’m talking about the band called “The Muslims” and not the adherents of the monotheistic religion of Islam of which there are certain radical fanatic fringe groups with whom our government is currently embroiled in a protracted and unwinnable war against. And I’m really digging them right now.

There. Much better.

So, have you heard ‘em yet? Assuming you have a computer, access to the internet, and read music blogs at least once a month (and if you’re reading this now, that’s a fair assumption to make), then there’s a good chance the answer is “Yes.” If not, then take a moment to get acquainted.

Brash, minimimalist, infectious — The Muslims tap into the primal energy of early, three-chord punk rock with frenetic, spiky rhythms and cool, detached vocals. I realize this could describe a thousand different bands, and it does, it’s just The Muslims do it right. I’ve read a lot of comparisons to The Strokes, which would be a decent comparison to make assuming that those reviewers meant to write “They sound like early Strokes if The Strokes were trying to imitate The Fall instead of Television.” At the very least, I’m getting that same feeling of excitement I got when I first heard The Strokes.

Plus, they’ve released a cover of Spacemen 3’s “Walking With Jesus,” which just so happens to be one of my favorite songs of all time. The best part about it? They don’t muck it up. They play off the simplistic, distorted formula of the original Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To demo and ratchet things up with a pounding kick drum, tambourine, and vocalist Matt Lamkin’s sneering, soul-forsaken paranoia. Is it better than the original? Oh, come on now, that’s hard for me to say. It’s arguably better than the S3 versions on For All the Fucked-Up Children of this World… and The Perfect Prescription, and that’s saying something.

The video for “Extinction,” one of The Muslims’ originals, is below. Czech it:

Try and tell me that wasn’t cool.