Riz Farooqi of prominent hardcorers King Lychee set off a juicy topic of discussion on his Facebook profile the other day that had people spitting against ignorance. The man had posted a statement made by US hardcore band Lamb of God in reference to Hong Kong’s Southeast Asian cousin Singapore.

“Since we will be in such bizarre places like Singapore… where they don’t even sell our records,” was the meaningless muttering by LoG that got Riz’s goat.

“My immediate response was of course based on being sensitive because, as a proud Asian, I don’t want people to continue to have this ridiculously outdated stereotype of Asia,” Riz told me. He points out that we’re not “some exotic far off land where people walk around in Sarongs and flip-flops, and could no way have ever heard of these types of bands.”

To me, this has an immediate resonance here in how we’re seen, or even how we see ourselves. It shows how these parts are still fighting off images of the backward oriental outpost when, in fact, we are leaders in uber-modernity and total connectivity.

I decided to find out more about LoG via their website. They’ve got a new album called Wrath, which seems to come wrapped in parchment that was discovered in the crypt of a satanic dungeon. Little skeletal puppies wave boney stumps at you, and fish bones breathe sticks of flaming rods.

If that’s a glimpse of the strange world these hairy guitar lords inhabit, it’s quite likely they find much of the whole world bizarre. But maybe LoG deserve the benefit of the doubt. They might be able to read, and they could have researched Singapore.
They may have learned about the durian-shaped conference centre in a city where it’s illegal to eat durian anywhere but in designated stink-corners. Or the spanking new US$4.7 billion casino where foreigners are allowed in for free but locals have to pay a steep entry fee – because the government wants to discourage gambling.

Come to think of it, our cousins are a bit bizarre, but not as bizarre as Lamb of God.

Check out Underground Heavy at Rockschool on March 13.