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.



Even now that the Taliban has been marginalized, there has been no metal scene flooding in. There isn't a single metal band in the country. The only Afghan-related metal band in existence today is Taarma. Taarma is a one-man ambient black metal project from one Black Emperor Jogezai, a man with Afghan roots who lives in the Balochistan region of Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan. The music sounds like a very good example of the ambient black metal genre, with a bunch of scary, indistinct noises. It's a bit like Sunn O))), without the heavy bass.

So, here's to Taarma, a metal warrior from a land not exactly friendly to the genre. The official web site is here.