Around The World in 80 Tunes

I'm happy to be back to blogging again after a short break for my latest academic research which will be published soon, and some interviews for Dubai Metal Festival. I feel that I am restoring an essential part of my soul and identity while writing in Metal. Here comes Alexandria, and when I mention Alexandria, I should mention cosmopolitanism, and this concept perfectly exists in Hate Field music. Hate Field reflects the essence of Alexandria in terms of music, nostalgia, madness, and mood. The saltness of the water, the smell of the sea, and the contrast between the blue sea and yellow sands. In addition, I can't ignore Hate Field because nobody came close to the music of this band, and the madness in each tune as I did. I have hundreds of memories trapped in me related to the music of this band, it is the first Alexandrian Metal band I've listened to, and it was the first band I interviewed in my whole 11-year-career in this scene and in my Metal career, Hate Field'...

  Although it is the fourth tune for the journey, we are still in Cairo to pick another unique tune from the country's capital!  Expiration of a Young Man is an Egyptian postrock band! Yeah, postrock! And to be honest, the band introduced a unique, professional musical release which is "Grey Entropy." I had an experience with the band before as I reviewed the group's first music video, but I didn't have the chance to listen to the album until this morning.  The EP is almost 30-minute experience, and I am using the term experience because the tunes of the album are wider than impressive sequence of rhythms and lines! The sequence of the music, the shifts between gloomy to strong sounds, and the mixture between the craziness of the guitars and the elegance of the keys just mess up with your mind! The music takes you from the seat, and dives into the depth of the world and its gloomy sides, alongside deconstructing your mind and breaks down your beliefs.  Wasting amo...

  As we started our journey from the very south of Egypt towards the North, we are now in Cairo. And, when it comes to Cairo, it is so hard to select just only one Metal band from the city to talk about because Cairo is one of the country's two major hubs of Metal bands. Scarab, Crescent, Ahl Sina, Medic, Sinprophecy, Frostagrath, Destiny in Chains, Devour, Divine, Wyvern, and many others made a shining mark in the history of our scene. But, if I could pick a band with a universal theme as this blog tackles more universality-oriented themes, It would be Medic's "Ascension"!  The concept of "Ascension" is deeply mystic, and philosophical. It is the journey from freeing the soul from the chains of the body and unifying it with the wide existence, tasting the pleasures of paradise, and fearing the depth flames of hell. So, the tracks of the album take the form of chapterization, as if you are reading a novel or a story. There are characters, they are anonymous,...

It's been a long time since I updated the journey of Around the World in 80 Tunes. The original plans was posting two articles weekly, however, some hinders blocked the way, but here we go again! Actually, the previous tune was Mounir's "Etkalemi," which means that the journey started from the very south of Egypt, so to take the next step, we need to go to the North! So, we will stop now by Asyut. Two years ago, I was checking the list of the bands located in Egypt on Encyclopaedia Metallum (The Metal Archives)! And, I was shocked when I found several bands enlisted without coming across them, I am one of those who really dived deep into the local scene of Egypt! so, how come I didn't hear about them? One of those bands is Lycopolis. The founder of the band is unknown, and I think, it could be a one-man band (Black Metal bands tradition).  Actually, the discography of the band is somehow huge and various, there are a live album (Idk how but there is a live album),...

Born in 1994, the means of technology in our small town were not really advanced! I was brought up by a passionate mom for music, arts, and culture, alongside her youngest brother who is the closest person to my heart regardless of his death in 2004! Mom and his brothers (Mohamed and Ehab who is currently renowned sculpturer in Egypt and the MENA region) are big fans of Mohamed Mounir. His music was played in our home, and my grandmother's home.  Mounir's music carries a deep and mysterious combination of tunes, it is not about the presence of folk and traditional patterns, it is not about the employment of Jazz and semi-classic genres, he is an epic musical experience, a unique, different one. His music conquers the rooms of the soul.  When Mounir hit Cairo, he experienced the pain of being a stranger in the big town, he passed through countless ups and downs during his career to be The King! to be on the top. His personal feelings, emotions of being different, being a strang...