Cheen’s ‘Felous Ala Gamb’ is an Electro-Rock Takedown of Capitalism

There are few figures in the Egyptian alternative music scene as storied as Cherine Amr. As the force behind pioneering Alexandrian metal band, Massive Scar Era, she spent two decades carving out a space in a scene that wasn't always necessarily ready for metal.

Since breaking off into a solo career under the moniker, Cheen, the artist has waded into various musical styles while still tethering herself to guitar-driven music. The latest example of this is ‘Felous Ala Gamb’, a track produced by electro-rock specialist, VRVBI (or Arabi).

The track swaps the distortion-heavy wall of sound for something leaner, sharper and decidedly more modern that marks a new chapter of experimentation with a collision of electronic percussion and punk spirit. With his musical style rooted in electronic textures and alternative arrangements, VRVBI provides a sleek, metallic framework for Cheen’s signature vocal grit. It doesn’t try to recreate the punk of the 70s or the metal of the 2000s, instead using their distinct sounds as a starting point for a hybrid sound that feels modern. Lyrically, ‘Felous Ala Gamb’ (translated roughly to ‘Money on the Side’) takes aim at the suffocating pressures and inherent contradictions of modern capitalism, offering a personal perspective on global anxiety.

In stripping away some (not all) layers of her metal heritage to embrace electro-rock sensibilities, Cheen has found a way to make her messages sharper than ever, delivering this particular one with the kind of energy we’ve come to expect from the ‘matriarch’ of Egypt's rock underground.