The Chinese Stars
w/Some Girls, Daughters

Tues March 16, Studio 7, 8 pm, $7 (all ages).

In the late '90s, Arab on Radar rose from the Providence swarm of art/noise experimentalists, agitated and swollen like a spider nest ready to burst. They performed a creepy crawl over irregular rhythms pulsing like slowly poisoned heartbeats, with guitars and vocals hissing and scattering into the shadowy cracks of basement Birthday Party funk, while frontman Eric Paul raged about pests like "amazing horseflies" and gigantic ants hovering around animal carcasses.

After releasing two full-lengths with the lauded Skin Graft label, AOR left its final mark in 2003 with one full-length and a collection of singles on Three-One-G. Now half the AOR members are back--Paul and drummer Craig Kureck--and they've teamed with Richard Ivan Pelletier of Sub Pop's '90s noise protagonists Six Finger Satellite to once again put the fly in the Prozac-ed post-punk ointment, this time as the Chinese Stars. The music on their Skin Graft debut, Turbo Mattress, keeps the beats as jerky as a racecar driver with the e-brake on, with guitar noise as jumper cables and Paul's surreal lyrics as a hallucinogen--fans of a more fucked Ex Models aesthetic, take note. After explaining that he "grew up in a glue factory/my teenage years were less than satisfactory" ("The Fastest Horse Yet"), Paul's nasal whine delivers metaphors mixed in a Cuisinart, with lines like "You could build a bone toilet/with the calories that roll off your shoulder/it could be a monument to our eating disorders" ("Sick Machine").

Paired with the Stars on this bill are two bands just as fringe-fare, but much more audio-abrasive--if only in the speed and might of their sound. Some Girls features the Locust's Justin Pearson in one of his many side-but-very-similar-projects, pairing up this time with Wes Eisold (American Nightmare, Give Up the Ghost) and Rob Moran (Unbroken, Over My Dead Body) to create a group heavy on the metal but with a disturbed hardcore edge, a band that beats the Stooges' "No Fun" into a pulpy version of its former self on All My Friends Are Going Death. Daughters wobble on an evil axis of grindcore, math metal, and noise, creating a din that disappears as quickly as it overwhelms. All in all, a dream lineup--if you enjoy your nightmares nice and noisy.

jennifer@thestranger.com