To close out this section, I'm really tempted to go back to my friends Orphaned Land, but I think that might be too easy, so instead I'm going to go for these guys, as I see they have a Bandcamp page and they're atmospheric black metal, which is our featured subgenre this year. Also, they come from Upper Galilee, so how much closer to the Holy Land can you get? They don't have an album, only an EP, and it only has four tracks, so this is likely to be a somewhat anticlimactic end to our journey through Israel, but so be it.
... And the Stormwinds Weep in Glory --- Neriglissar
We open on sounds of wind and thunder as rain lashes down on “The old grey tower”, a short, just over one minute in fact, introduction to the EP, with lush keyboards and a hissing whisper which speaks in the darkness before we move into “Demonic exaltation” with a solid keyboard sound and pealing bells, bringing in hammering guitar and drums, with a snarling roar. Then the keys drop back and guitar takes the tune, and it looks like we're in one-man-band territory again, with all instruments and vocals taken by the mysterious Verdigris. It's good stuff, with certainly some elements of symphonic metal thrown in, and there are clean vocals too, courtesy of someone else who can only afford one name, and calls himself Mæstør.
The guitar has almost a power metal feel to it at times, romping along triumphantly and the keyboard really adds to the majestic feel of it. I think the next track has backward masking on it (oh how Satanic!) as something is said which sounds like it may be backwards (if our mate Verdigris is speaking in English, which is by no means certain, though the song titles are all in English) then hard fast heavy guitar is joined by slower, mournful keyboard. An odd juxtapositioning really, not sure it works. Anyway, this is “Path to Alamut” and not as long as the previous song, which ran for over seven minutes. This just clocks in at a mere five and a half. Nice sort of boogie rhythm takes the guitar for a while, the vocals all dark and growly, no idea what he's singing and I have no lyrics.
The last track (yeah, already) is the most symphonic of them all, and the guitar work on “Pulsa denura” is just exquisite, to say nothing of the synth layers. A really great closer, and as I say unfortunately that's it; four tracks only. But if I hear of more from these guys I reckon I'll be tracking it down.
TRACKLISTING
1. The old grey tower
2. Demonic exaltation
3. Path to Alamut
4. Pulsa denura
Final Note:
One thing I have come across (and I was not surprised but was disappointed) is the amount of vitriol there is on YouTube towards Israel. Now, I have no particular love for them myself --- any state that can effectively imprison and then systematically demolish a far smaller, less well-armed one is not really worthy of my respect to be honest --- but I feel the politics should take a back seat when listening to the music. Sure, some of that itself will be political, but to say you won't listen to (as some of the idiots on YT have) their music just because they're Israeli is a gross oversimplification and a case of stereotyping, to say nothing of the practice of tarring all with the one brush.
This is what I kind of set out to tackle with this series: the idea that no matter where you are, (unless you subscribe of course to the bias of certain YouTube commenters, that is) what's going on in your country, who's in power or what the attitude towards music is, Heavy Metal thrives, survives and surmounts the obstacles as men and women refuse to be beaten down and hide their love of this music. In taking these four war-torn countries as the examples for this year, I think I've managed to get a decent idea of how music, and metal in particular, crosses boundaries both geographical and personal, and makes its voice heard even in the darkest of corners.