Moribund Records

To my knowledge there's not a whole lot of metal going on in the Middle East. As far as I know, most bands don't tour to play in the Middle East, so living there would not seem to be conducive to playing metal. But now my limited knowledge on Lebanon's metal activity tells me that they at least sure as hell get a lot of metal distributed to the people in some form or fashion, because a band like Ayat does not pop up out of the absence of metal, punk, crust and total aural fury... unless it comes into existence for this very reason. However, a band like Ayat could only exist in a place like the Middle East, bred by the rampant hatred and hostilities of conflicting nations. War is in their blood, and this blood is all over their back yard.

 Having released nothing but two EP's and a string of demos over the last 9 years, Ayat is a relative no-name in modern metal. One could not expect anything more, considering the land the band calls home. How they have managed to record and release ANYTHING without being found, arrested, and sentenced to a bizarre Muslim punishment is a mystery to me. You've got to hand it to these guys - they are truly dedicated to their hateful, anti-religious stance more so than you can say for any other metal band of note. Metal bands in America, Germany, Canada, Scandinavia, France, England, Mexico, etc... will not be hunted down, stripped of rights and thrown into prison for what they say and write about religion, or Allah or Islam. Ayat will. With Six Years of Dormant Hatred Ayat have unleashed what sounds more like six centuries of dormant hatred, misanthropy and disgust.

Season of Mist

The Australian and Anti-christ Deströyer 666 now based in the Netherlands released its last album back in 2002. The unfortunate expiration of visas of two of the band members put the band in difficult times, and required some new recruitments. The Terror Abraxas EP was released in 2003 and that was the last many of us had heard from these wolves of war. Six years of waiting have seemed like six decades. A year and a half ago the legions of unholy devotees heard the good news of the D666 guys working on new material and the recording of a new album. Finally, the sounds of sin have been given back to us.

It has been a long time. A new Deströyer 666 album has been one of my most anticipated delights in the last six years, and I was beginning to think it would not happen. But with the recent bequeathment of the new Absu album, another treasure I had been anticipating for something approaching a decade, I thought all was not lost. I was correct, because only days ago Defiance was released in the states and I picked it up within a few hours of the record store opening. The entire album had been leaked over the internet over a month ago, and I couldn't help but listen through it all once. But I did my best to refrain from listening any more than that, to not ruin the impact of the brilliance I was hearing.