A.R.E. Weapons seems to welcome eschatological defeat with open arms, a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a lighter aflame in the other, wearing both a sinister smile and a tremendous hard-on. Guitarist Matt McAuley and mono-named Brain map the geography of modern New York City, play to the feral lust and chaos which constitute the palpitating core of the city itself. The music serves to underscore rather than orchestrate Brain's alternately stoned and orgasmic vocals, a tableau of gleefully overblown synthesizers and methamphetamine-charged drum machines, punctuated with electronic glitches. Like their lyrics, the music of A.R.E. Weapons references hardly anything but itself; it's a messy cut-and-paste of some of the worst ingredients of electronica and no-wave. But then, A.R.E. Weapons have hardly solicited the scenester darling status which has been bestowed upon them. Their live shows receive awful reviews, and they've been dismissed as the amateurish enfant terrible of the NYC scene, a postured band trying to veil a dearth of talent with well-rehearsed gimmicks.
On first listen, the criticism seems well-founded. Unironically delivering lines like 'gimme gimme gimme gimme everything' usually smacks of something contrived, or a brand of megalomania generally associated with psychological illness. It's hedonism nouveau, a terrifying new breed of nihilism; a mentality which gives a rigid middle finger to both the establishment and its dissenters, a nihilism which feeds nothing but its own basic biological hungers, as well as those spawned by capitalism. It eschews the sparkling, unctuous decadence of rock'n'roll; it's undeniably sexy, but more than the hesitant and dabbling bisexuality of glam rock, A.R.E. Weapons is pansexual, panviolent, panoptical.
But as the album progresses, A.R.E. Weapons raises questions as to the sort of children which a culture obsessed with greed and sex has produced, particularly on the maudlin opus 'Hey World', which sounds like a celebrity fundraiser sing-along gone awry, lobotomized and drugged. The comedy of its well-meaning bulletin to parents, begging them to go easy on kids, because 'you're gonna fuck up sometimes, so parents don't be so hard', counters the morose lyrics in the rest of the song: "What's a kid to believe in? Robbing and stealing, because it feels real". Brain and McAuley assume the musical equivalency of the alluringly sleazy, weathered thirty-something hanging around the liquor store, buying booze for kids.
And why not, because as the band asserts on 'Changes', 'we're all born to die, but the kids are having a good time getting fucked up anyway'? The song is backed by ominous synthesizers and syncopated drum machines, and nearly every lyric is prefaced with 'yo' before launching itself violently and crescendoing in perfect postmodern slogans like 'don't be scared' and 'life was meant to be awesome'. The latter resounds in the chorus of the opening track, begging the question if 'meant' is the operative word in that phrase, a question neither refuted nor confirmed by the rest of the album, but no one gives a shit. The album assaults, exhilarates, seduces; it leaves you feeling dirty, abashed, wanting more but knowing you shouldn't, because, as Brain fervently yells on 'Changes', 'fact of the matter is there's a war that's raging on, but fact of the matter is it's the war that turns me on'. All A.R.E. Weapons are doing, and doing frighteningly well, is saying what everyone is thinking.
- Ashley Brown
