Atlas of Metal: Australia

This is the eighth installment in the Atlas of Metal series. Three of the previous countries have larger populations than Australia--Argentina, Algeria, and Afghanistan. But odds are, you probably couldn't name any metal bands from those countries without looking them up. Not so for Australia, which has a long-standing relationship with the genre going all the way back to the arguably metal AC/DC, formed in 1973.

Metal Archives lists a whopping 1,481 metal bands in Australia. That's only about 200 more than Argentina, but Argentina has almost twice as many people. That means that Australia is twice as metal by volume. (And hey, they are a major exporter of iron ore.)

Since the scene in Australia doesn't really need to be discovered, per se, I thought I'd just share a few of my favorites. I personally don't care for AC/DC and haven't listened to them since high school, but there's plenty more where that came from.

Portal is my favorite band of the country. They are definitely not for everyone. Please don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds like it was composed by a pissed-off autistic genius. It has somewhat of an obscure ritualistic quality to it, it's not concerned with making friends, and it has a brilliant sort of hidden logic behind it all.

Atlas of Metal: Armenia

Sorry it's been so long since I've done one of these. But life gets in the way, you know. I have not given up on this project.

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.

Atlas of Metal: Argentina

Argentina is the first country in this series to have a significant metal scene: over 1200 bands are listed on Metal Archives. Before working on this, I don't think I've ever heard any Argentine metal, and can't name a famous one. And I obviously can't listen to that many bands, so I'm just going to pick a few to highlight.

V8 was formed in 1979, and is one of the most significant bands in the country's early metal scene. It sounds like pretty standard heavy metal, but with Spanish lyrics. The vocals are probably going to keep these guys off any list of the best metal bands of the era, though.

Atlas of Metal: Antigua and Barbuda

I can find no evidence of a metal band in Antigua and Barbuda. (The band Antigua y Barbuda is from Spain, and has no apparent connection to the tiny Caribbean nation.) So, the country is the first inductee in the Atlas of Metal Hall of Shame.

Atlas of Metal: Angola

Angola is the first country in the Atlas of Metal from Sub-Saharan Africa. In other words, the very last place in the inhabited world where you expect to find metal. And it is as rare as you might think. Metal Archives lists only two bands from the country. Thankfully, both of them are currently active.

Before Crush is listed as a death metal/deathcore band, but they sound like pretty straight-forward metalcore to me. The Bullet for My Valentine t-shirt doesn't exactly give them a lot of credibility in my eyes--and the water pouring over the dude's head in this video makes it even worse. There's nothing original about it, and the vocals are terrible. Still, they get credit for trying, considering where they're from.



Neblina is listed as a heavy metal band in Metal Archives, and for some reason they have a Wikipedia page which calls them gothic metal. From the one video I'm sure is theirs, the gothic metal tag is appropriate, but there's also a distinct Latin influence (Angola was part of the Portuguese empire). I've found some more videos that may be from the same band, and if it is, then it sounds like they listened to a lot of ska . . . either way, I wouldn't be interested to hear anything else from them.



Outside of the archives, the only other thing I can find is Katingation, a death metal band who feature only a 15 second clip on their MySpace to let the world hear them. And it's not terribly promising, as far as offering anything new, but when it's that short it's hard to say. I would actually see them if they were opening for somebody else, though.

So. Yeah. That's metal in Angola. Not exactly an up-and-coming scene.

Atlas of Metal: Andorra

Andorra is a tiny European country between Spain and France, with a population of only 84,000. It's unsurprising there are only three metal bands listed from the country on Metal Archives, and only two of them are active.

Nami is a progressive metal band. It's hard to tell what they sound like from the few videos I've found, but they seem to have a mainstream-friendly sound, with some edge to it, bearing a vague resemblance to Opeth. I couldn't find any complete songs on Youtube--in fact, this video is crap, and the others are very short live cuts, so it's hard to tell whether we should care about them.



Persefone is another progressive metal band, who have a definite melo-death base to their progressive tendencies, complete with keyboards and some Dream Theater-isms. I would interested in hearing more from this band.

Atlas of Metal: Algeria

Metal bands in Africa are few and far between. And in Muslim states, they're just as rare.

Algeria, a very large country in northern Africa, happens to have 21 bands listed in Metal Archives. That's quite a few for being outside the normal metal sphere. Possibly, this is because of their former French rule, large size, and being situated on the Mediterranean.

Arkan is an Oriental metal band created by Algerians in France. Whether they're expats or merely descended from immigrants I'm not sure, but their music is extremely good stuff. The closest analog I can think of is Orphaned Land, but I think I like this better, as their death metal influence is much stronger. They had a new album that came out just last week, so check them out.

Atlas of Metal: Albania

The Republic of Albania is a small European country just north of Greece. It's estimated they are about 2/3 Muslim, and were until 1990 a Communist state, so you might not expect to find a lot of metal bands there. And you'd be right.

The Metal Archives lists a total of six bands from the country. Only three of them are currently active, none of whom are signed.

Gverr is a progressive death metal band who sound like they're strongly influenced by Death in terms of both musical and vocal style, as well as some influence from more modern technical death metal bands with a more old-school feel like Psycroptic. What I've heard actually sounds like pretty strong (though not groundbreaking) material.



Crossbones is listed as a thrash metal band in the Archives, but they sound more like a 90's garage band who listened to too much groove and nu metal. Almost like they could have been Machine Head, only with a more generic and ineffectual sound. Judge for yourself:



Finally, we have something former Communist states tend to be good for: black metal. Nihil is just that, sounding like fairly typical Eastern European black metal. It's hard to tell whether they have anything new to offer from this video, but they sound good enough that I'd go see them if I ever made it to Albania:

Atlas of Metal: Afghanistan

Welcome to the first installment of the Atlas of Metal, where I'll be exploring metal from around the world. I'll discuss each country in the world where I can find a metal band, in alphabetical order.

Afghanistan is known as the Graveyard of Empires, because historically countries that have become involved there have fallen from greatness shortly thereafter. Graveyard of Empires would make a damn good album title, I think. It had until recently been ruled by the Taliban, a very strict but loosely associated group that outlawed many things: Including anything that produces music. That's right, any music at all. So you can imagine there were no metal bands under Taliban rule.