An improvement over their previous album
Berberism. Although this too mixes and matches some traditional Moroccan music (particularly as heard in Hassan Arouhal's banjo and melismatic lead vocals) with Western/rock sampling and programming, the sound is gutsier, due mostly to the dirty electric rock guitars of Fido K. and Larbi Kanssab. The 13 songs run together as an uninterrupted suite of sorts, and there are some swooping electronic and dub-like effects that zig and zag as if they are instruments in their own right. It is not easy to use programming, sampling, and electronics with spontaneity in a rock/world fusion setting -- at least, such spontaneity is not often attempted -- but, for the most part,
Argan succeed in doing so here. It's not as exhilarating as the best efforts in that field from the most famous Moroccan act on Barbarity (Aisha Kandisha's Jarring Effects), but at its best, it's reminiscent of them. ~ Richie Unterberger