Hilal

Let me start off by saying you will probably never hear a band like this. Ever. The guys at Arkan PLC show the metal market a truly unique product that is an exotic alternative to the more mundane and/or ridiculous melodic death metal bands that exist. And honestly this album needs selling, its really quite something.

Of course one listen to this and I was thinking 'Wait, Behemoth but with lyrics about Muhammad...’ but its not really the case. What makes a band like Arkan stand out is their background: where they're from and their heritage. As much as Eluveitie uses their gaulish heritage in their music (which is obvious when you listen to it) and Amorphis have recently started to perfect from their Finnish roots, Arkan use traditional middle eastern melodies and instrumentation, vocal styles and ambience for their basis in metal. Well, now the folksy stuff is through, what about the metal?

The Behemoth comparison from earlier wasn't as daft as I thought. It’s heavy. Very heavy. Septic Flesh levels of heavy with Behemoth style ferocity. Melodic death metal doesn't quite cover it. If ever there was such a thing as brutal melodic death metal, it would be applied to this album with a pretty big paintbrush. You can sample this style by listening to the song 'Chaos Cypher'. But where the band is crushing, it is equally soft as well. Such as in the aforementioned 'Chaos Cypher', around the midpoint of the song an almost transcendent female vocal passage is unleashed and is a pretty good balance from the intensity of the first 3 minutes.

But (arguably) there seems to be a thing among folk influenced bands that for every good thing about them that they have, there seems to be an unrelated problem that comes with it. Arkan, in this case, seem to have a few, although in early retrospect they don’t really matter much when compared to the good half.

First off, given the general tension between the east and the west from wherever you are in the world, it wouldn't be wrong to say that people will have their sub-conscious prejudices about different sorts of music, especially some when the two styles of western music (metal) and eastern music are combined. Unless the person listening is a total redneck however, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Secondly, the songs are rather long despite being balanced in an Opeth kind of way. It all sort of has the impression of 'There’s too much brutal here and there and not enough soft stuff in this point' so listening to it all non-stop will give you a mild headache.. much like Brain Drill, but without the stupid sweeps and abundance of wankery.

And probably one of the worst parts of this album is the 'melodic' part of the melodic death metal tag. I've never considered Middle Eastern music to particularly melodic in the uplifting sense like your standard melodeath band and many proper death metal bands use it as a primary source for their riffing. Even the clean vocals featured throughout the album only add a passing soothe to the insanely deep growls and minor key low string grinding. The only really exception to this is in the song 'Lords Decline' which blends the soft and heavy sections quite well, even featuring an Opeth style acoustic break and clean section.

But of course, my stance on Middle Eastern styled music isn't relevant to everyone’s taste so you'll have to try out this unique experience yourself.

Tracks to look out for: Lords Decline, Chaos Cypher, Amaloun Jadid, Defying the Idols.