Armenia is a tiny country at the crossroads of the world. Situated on the border between Europe and the Middle East, you can easily imagine their cultural heritage is rich and complex. At the same time, they've been subject to oppression, including the Armenian genocide (about the time of World War I) and diaspora, as well as Soviet rule. So, you'd think they'd be angry enough to be full of metal bands. Not so, according to Metal Archives, which lists only 11 bands from the country.
Asparez was a heavy metal band who released one full-length album in 1990. All I could find from them was this power ballad. It's a power ballad. That's pretty much all I have to say about that.
Blood Covenant is a symphonic black metal band, although they also seem to incorporate some folk influence. Armenia is officially Christian, and the vast majority of their people identify as Christians. This band is Christian, but it actually sounds good, and they put the time into making a decent video. I would be interested to hear more out of them.
Rahvira, on the other hand, is NSBM (kind of weird considering their race was the victim of genocide), and they pretty much sound like the stereotype: simple, straight-forward black metal with a marching rhythm and some synths. It's pretty boring.
MDP was a prog metal band that would have been perfectly at home touring with Dream Theater
or Rush. Not bad, but they never did get around to releasing a proper full-length.Finally, Sadael is a one-man funeral doom band, the kind with deep growled vocals and synths. Since I am a fan of the genre, you might expect me to like this. And you'd be right. It sounds pretty good, so I'd be interested to hear more.
Blood Covenant actually sounds pretty interesting. I should download some of their work sometime.
ReplyDeleteAbout NSBM in Armenia, Nazis exist pretty much everywhere. Hell, there are even Nazis in Mongolia.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/02/mongolia-far-right
Bizarre. First, Nazis who were themselves members of a race that was the victim of genocide, and now Nazis that aren't even Caucasian. Next there will be some black Jewish Nazis. What a world we live in.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what your point is here. Very lazy attempt at organizing a "scene report" about a country and some random bands that you clearly have no clue about.
ReplyDeleteAn elementary school student could do a more competent job. You're searching through Metal Archives, choosing a country (surely because only a few bands are listed from said country), and then linking some music videos........uninspiring.
If you'd click on the atlas label you'd find that I'm doing every country in the world, in alphabetical order, and doing each country in the way I see fit. For instance, I could only find one band related to Afghanistan, but for Argentina I did some searching to find some of their most significant bands. For Armenia, nothing really stood out, so I picked a little from several different genres. You'll soon see how I handle Australia, if you keep checking back.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, it's not attended as a scene report. I'm a student of metal, not an expert (I think it was Josh Haun who first said that). And I'm just sharing my exploration.
If you don't like it, fine.