The album title is not some cheap stunt to attract kids. It is very serious, indeed the whole album is steeped in an extremely serious message. Erotic Terrorism is a musical manifesto against white hegemony and racist oppression of colored people around the globe. Erotic Terrorism is an amazing blend of many musical influences East and West united with a single purpose. Embracing Indian, Pakistani, jazz, rock, funk, and even folk music, it adds samples and powerful spoken word pieces to create a powerful album.

The first song, Oh Lord!, opens with a sample form an old British radio show where children are singing a song entitled "Ten Little N*gger Boys." Utterly mind-boggling that such a song could ever have been so casually broadcast over the airwaves. The sample sets the tone for the album setting up the cavalier attitude it will fight.

Oh Lord! Is built around the sample "Repression is of the devil" and the spoken lyric "Devil would like a word." The message is clear: racism and oppression is the evil that plagues us. This message is set to a very catchy hard-edged tune with north-African styled horn, heavy drums and guitars.
Intensely absolutely there - that's the chorus and the theme of Demonized Soul. The frustration and anger with social repression is expressed through massive jungle drums and punk vocals. Though perhaps not a true punk song, it is too melodic, it possesses all the energy and fury of true British punk.

A song of pure adrenalin, Ja Sha Taan has quickly become a world fusion classic. Sampling a classic Qawaali song, Fun-Da-Mental transforms it into a world fusion anthem. They very effectively remaster and overdub the vocals to make them bolder and more booming, almost fierce. Underlying these they sample a high-pitched cry creating an eerie but energizing wail that sounds like a cry to action. Further layers of sound are added: a synthesized tabla-styled rhythm line, drones, and western drums. The power of vocals, electronics, and drums blast forth in a wall of sound that stay true to the original spiritual heart of the song, while generating an ecstatic dance anthem. Ja Sha Taan, and the remixes of it by Transglobal Underground and Jesus & Mary Chain in subsequent albums remain the best songs in world fusion music.

I am not sure what to think or say about the next track, Blood in Transit. It is a collection of bodily noises set in a crude melody. Blessfully it is only 1:23 long.

After that brief intermission, Repent returns us to our regularly scheduled music. Based on a simple tribal drum rhythm with a minimum of electronics, Repent tells the story of white colonial oppression through samples of a black Christian preacher:

White folks haven't even acknowledged that they done you wrong
They have not REPENTED for what they did to your fathers.

I do not know who it is being sampled here, but the speaker is definitely philosophical kin of Malcolm X although also is decidedly Christian in their anti-racism message. The drum beat is so infectious and so superbly mixed with the preaching that the song cannot be denied from entering into your soul.

In the style of 70's funk comes Deathening Silence. Lyrically the most complex of the songs on the album, it tells the story of how cries for justice fall upon the deaf ears of an apathetic culture.

And in the vastness there I saw,
Specks of dust creating laws,
Causing pain without inflicting,
Deceiving souls without deceiving,
Writing poems that lost ones never shared,
Spirits only dared,
Disturb the sound of deafening silence,
Disturb the sound of deafening silence,

Here is a glimpse of how Fun-Da-Mental sees the message of culture and the media: a deathening silence of non-acknowledgement. At the end of this song, Nawaz begins a commentary that continues through the rest of the album.

Take it too personally?
Of course I'm fucking taking it too personally,
What so you think I am a lawyer, an entertainer, a politician?

All you industrial-metal fans will love Furious. It's a song which, well, is pretty furious. Again, the anger is directed at our complacent society:

They believe it's a myth, it's internal death,
Furious, Furious, Furious, Furious,
. . . .
Lost children need strength but have no belief,
Their beliefs easily taken, no need for a thief,
Furious, Furious, Furious, Furious,

Musically, the song is very heavy and loud, with lyrics shouted rather than sung. Nawaz concludes the song speaking:

Wherever fascism exists as a form of government, it deserves to be fought, whether it is Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Atheist.

See I A speaks against the violence of war, how civilian causalities are only "dust on ants' feet," to the perpetrators of war. The music is a unique blend of American folk and south Asian rhythm. The tempo is slow, like a Memphis blues crawl. A banjo plays rhythm guitar to the vocals while percussion lays down a syncopated Asian beat.

The Distorted C is nice blend of techno and classical Indian. Based on a Bhangra rhythm, synths add a layer of secondary techno rhythm. On top of that is added long strokes of Indian strings, violin-like in sound. While these three different sounds may well sound like they would clash, they mix readily forming a short but danceable mid-tempo song. The song ends with a sampled speech about black power:

We don't want any more than you have, and we won't accept any less than you have.

One Ness is another track based on a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan song. Delightfully mellow, the vocals are kept true this time, the only addition being synthesizer accompaniment. The blend of classical and modern works very as Nusrat's organic vocals contrast with the high tech chords of he synths. One Ness is a soothing, beautiful song. The beauty makes Nawat's after-song comments all the more compelling:

Changes? Think there's been a lot of changes? Nah, the changes that have come have come from the pure stubborn love and sacrifice of many, many black people. Just for that little bit of change. You can still see racism, you can still see it people's eyes. It just doesn't balance out: that amount of struggle for that amount of change. Doesn't make sense whatsoever. And I'm sure people are just accommodating. Accommodating, that's all it is. That's not change. Accommodation is not change.

An extremely catchy popish rock song is Sliced Lead. The song opens with vocals from a south Asian love song then switching to light electronics and a rock backbeat. Whispered vocals sing to the backbeat with instrumental interludes of harmonium, sax, and another south Asian vocal sample.

Slice the head
Fill it with lead
That's what you said
It's what you were fed

It's as close to radio-friendly song as is on this album; club-friendly too. I can see people dancing to this.

What bothers me is that bad things happen and no one does anything about them.

That's how the final song, Tongue Goes Cold, begins, read by a female child. It is followed by a funk bass rift layered with funkier electronics and jazz percussion. The half-spoken, half-sung lyrics are like beat poetry. You can almost hear the finger snaps afterwards.

Oblivious to what it is,
Keep it curious,
Grown to a medical specimen,
Paranoid, mad, careless deviance.

Erotic Terrorism ends with a series of samples from various sources - news, politicians, preachers, and activists. It culminates with Nawat calling for a vision of people looking at all us, finally, as one race - the human race.

While many won't be able to stomach the politically charged message of this album, Erotic Terrorism is an incredible example of how one can set the struggle against racism to some superb music.

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