Where to begin with Shanghai's Round Eye? Well, for starters, none of them are native-born Chinese. They're actually from all over the world, but have found themselves in mainland China, primarily due to work. Lead by vocalist, former Florida resident, and Libyan Hit Squad defector Craig [last name redacted]; the group are four albums and ten years into their career- a spectacular exercise in stubborn survival and foolish flights of misbegotten fancy. They've managed to thrive in their adopted haven despite having tours canceled by the authorities at the last minute, having their art censored due to its obscenity, and having their very existence snubbed and motivations questions by hipsters and elitists from across the globe. But, hey, what doesn't kill you makes you weirder, you know? And Round Eye are plenty strange.
For their fourth album Culture Shock Treatment, their second with Mike Watts behind the mixing board, Round Eye have make a record that is about as old-school punk as you can get. Don't know what I mean? Look, it's not your fault. Blame Green Day or Sire Records, or the music press in the '90s. A lot of people treated The Ramones and the Sex Pistols as the only legacy acts worth mentioning back in those days. But the genre was more than just three chords, played loud and fast with dried glue in your hair. There were some dudes with real vision back in the day. Acts like The Damned, who combined punk attitude with humor and absurd theater. Fellas like Grahm Parker who presented an air of sophistication while maintaining an encourageable, wise-ass sneer. And punk clubs opened up spaces for deranged pop acts like Sparks and no wavers like James Chance & The Contortions to flourish. If you were to triangular a point in rock and roll's sea of sounds and inspirations between all of these groups (plus The Fall), you'd find an island inhabited by mostly insane people that neighbors the one the Round Eye calls home.
Culture Shock Treatment, like most of the band's previous albums, is political in theme, and while Monstervision took mostly safe jabs at the American election of 2016, this one is aimed at what they view as authoritarian overreach in the place where they now live and work. I can't tell you how, since I don't live there, and can't speculate, but the passion and anger in the face of injustice permeate the album, like water oozing through an exasperated sponge. Wring it out in your ear, and you might learn a little about what it's like to live in a place different than your own... or you might just lose your grip on your own sanity. Caveat emptor and all that.
Culture Shock Treatment is out via Paper + Plastick Records.
