#middle eastern metal

[defiledcasket]

and here we have some more black metal which I swear is something I'm not obsessed with and don't post about too much. this one's got an eastern esoteric sort of theme going on with a bit of instrumentals and melodies to match. links at bottom of post!

featured artists: Melechesh, Al-Namrood, Darkestrah, Nightbringer, Order of Orias & Arallu

𓋹 spotify 𓋹 apple 𓋹 youtube 𓋹

[gbhbl]

EP Review: Dialith - Alter (Self Released)

Connecticut based symphonic power metal band, Dialith, are back with a brand new EP titled Alter, due for release on the 5th of April. Dialith is an epic symphonic power metal band from Danbury, Connecticut. Formed in 2015, Dialith made an impact with their 2019 debut album, Extinction Six. Blending epic orchestral arrangements with enrapturing melodeath riffs, Dialith aims to breathe new life…

[metalhead-brainrot]

[Album of the day] Ethereal Sands - From Dust To Stone

Aubagne, FRA || 2024

[Genres] industrial metal, post metal, prog metal

[Themes] Middle Eastern metal

[FFO] Nile,* Akhenaten

[Thoughts] The most recent of many projects by Kosm, whom I know from a free Weedian** release: Bong of Nothingness - Space Datura (instrumental stoner doom).

o()xxxx[:::::::::::::::::> o()xxxx[:::::::::::::::::> o()xxxx[:::::::::::::::::>

* Other relevant posts.

** WEEDIAN's page || a post where I talk about them

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[arthistoryanimalia]

#MetalMonday:

Silver Ram’s Head Rhyton, c. 700-600 BCE, from Ziwiye (Iran)

On display at Penn Museum

Read more about this piece here:

[museum-archives]

Box

ARTIST: Artist unrecorded

DATE: 20th century

PLACE MADE: Historic Palestine, Middle East/West Asia, Asia

MEDIUM: Silver

[angeltannis]

Been listening a lot to this CD I got brand new and sealed for $1 at the charity shop a few weeks ago… Welcome to the Downside by Speak No Evil… it’s really good and high quality music!! But it seems like they dropped off the face of the earth after this album. I’ve been trying to find some more info about it, and I found out that this album, which is HEAVILY critical of the US government, came out in August of 2001… I wonder if that had anything to do with it…

[chusssmusic]

Listen/purchase: El Ashya Ma3dan (Things Are Metal) by chusss - The Visitor

[bitchfitch]

normally i have a pretty easy time with first drafts of Characters. but i fucking hate Gier's now that I'm not exhausted and a Teensy bit off my shits, and I'm not even going to post the first draft of Maalik's bc they came out so bad.

I'm going to give them both another shot tonight tho and i might just ditch full body designs and figure out their faces first.

[cavedwellermusic]

Levantine Week Day 2: Zalaam - Bottomless Black Hole

Each month CDM spends a week looking at the music of a specific country or region that we believe deserves more attention. This month we have chosen to look at the music of the diverse region known as the Levant, covering music from multiple countries.

For day 2 of Levantine Week we turn to Palestine, where Sidney looked at the great sophomore record of one man project Zalaam. Skilfully walking the line between raw, depressive atmosphere and surprisingly uplifting instrumentals, Zalaam translated the lived experience of some truly extreme and horrifying conditions to music. Bottomless Black Hole is a tour deforce demonstrating that the DIY ethos of black metal is alive and well.

[vvitchgrindergeneral]

Melechesh /// Rebirth of the Nemesis (Enuma Elish Rewritten)

Lla Tchaf Lla min Tiamat Enuma Elish is re-written

[ragingsteel666-blog]

"Sahara"ORPHANED LAND

1994年に本作でもってデビューしてきた時、このバンドは局所的ながらかなりのセンセーションを呼んでいたように思う。イスラエル出身というだけでも異例なのに、比較対象が見当たらないこの音楽性。中近東メロディの導入は、部分的であればそれまでも決して珍しくはなかったのだが、それを全編に配してヘヴィメ��ルとなると、確かに類すらも見なかった。

ただそれゆえに、当時特に某誌においては少々小難しそうなバンドとして紹介されてしまった感がある。言うまでもなく中近東のメロディに小難しい要素など微塵もないし、理解できたから偉いというほどでもない。基本は構築主義のデス／スラッシュメタルであり、そうした音としての完成度の高さに見るべきところがある。基本、ピュアなメタルヘッズ向けのバンドだ。カッコイイと思うよ！

[sonic-emporium]

My eyes wide shut, jumping in the void Falling so fast I touched the ground Not a solution, just an escape I might awaken again

At least I have tried Made all I can Tried to fit the frame Incorporate the game

I never could incorporate this frame, and I know I can run, but never find the way out of here

Make up every lie, even when you're right Could not make it right Give up who I am

I never could incorporate this frame, and I know I can run, but never find the way

I never could incorporate this frame, and I know I can run, but never find the way out of here

[arthistoryanimalia]

#TwoForTuesday at the Penn Museum:

1. garment decorations, Tepe Hissar (Iran), c. 2300 BCE, gold.

“These striking gold appliques in the shape of a ram's head would have been secured to clothing through the holes pierced around their edge.”

2. goat heads, possibly Fara (Iraq), c. 2475-2300 BCE, copper alloy, shell, limestone.

“These heads were cast in copper and inlaid with shell and colored limestone. The powerful corkscrew horns capture the majesty of a wild markhor mountain goats.”

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

The Rolling Stones - Paint It Black 1966

"Paint It Black" is a song by the English rockband the Rolling Stones. A product of the songwriting partnership of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, it is a raga rock song with Indian, Middle Eastern and Eastern European influences and lyrics about grief and loss. Two months after it being released as a non-album single, London Records included it as the opening track on the American version of the band's 1966 studio album Aftermath, though it is not on the original UK release.

Originating from a series of improvisational melodies played by Brian Jones on the sitar, the song features all five members of the band contributing to the final arrangement although only Jagger and Richards were credited as songwriters. In contrast to previous Rolling Stones singles with straightforward rock arrangements, "Paint It Black" has unconventional instrumentation, including a prominent sitar, the Hammond organ and castanets. The song was influential to the burgeoning psychedelic genre as the first chart-topping single to feature the sitar, and widened the instrument's audience.

"Paint It Black" was a major chart success for the Rolling Stones, remaining 11 weeks (including two at number one) on the US Billboard Hot 100, and 10 weeks (including one atop the chart) on the Record Retailer chart in the UK. Upon a reissue in 2007, it reentered the UK Singles Chart for 11 weeks. It was the band's third number-one single in the US and sixth in the UK. The song also topped charts in Canada and the Netherlands.

"Paint It Black" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2018. In 2011, the song was added to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of "The Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". It has seen commercial use in film, video games and other entertainment media, such as Full Metal Jacket (1987), The Devil's Advocate (1997), Wednesday (2022), as well as being used as a plot device in the supernatural horror film Stir of Echoes (1999).

"Paint It Black" received a total of 92,8% yes votes!

[yetanotherlesbianonthiswebsite]

An overly complicated analysis of everything we know about Neve Gallus in canon, as well as some additional thoughts of mine on the themes surrounding her (because I am so gay for her already)

1. Canon information

- Her age is, as of yet, unknown. In the Tevinter Nights story The Streets of Minrathous, narrated in the first-person perspective by Neve, we read “He greeted me with a dismissive ‘young lady’ that made me think he’d forgotten my name” (216). However, this is a description by an older man, whose nephew is alive long enough that his “parents had disowned him years ago” (213). In another passage of the story, the following can be read: “The man was a con artist I’d turned in the year before. To be fair, he’d nearly gotten me killed the year before that, so we were even” (221). We can therefore be certain that she has engaged successfully in detective work for at least two years, and has likely been doing so for a while. We do not know when the story is set, neither do we know anything about the parallel stories of “The Wigmaker Job” and “Luck in the Gardens”. We get the information that a Venatori cultist was wearing clothes that are fading (220), and that the cult had long since lost much standing in society; it has likely been quite a number of years since 9:42. At the same time, we know of a Qunari invasion in the eastern part of the Tevinter Empire from 9:44/45 onward, with several major cities falling to the invaders. Neve describes the catacombs as “a place to hold a year’s worth of food and supplies, securing the city’s survival in case of blight or Qunari invasion” (232). A woman as observant and politically savvy as her would likely not frame an invasion as that much of a hypothetical in case of an ongoing war. It is reasonable to assume that the story takes place sometime around the middle of the forties. Which means that by the events of Veilguard, in the middle of the fifties, we should expect Neve to have had at least twelve years of experience as a private investigator, which places her likely age at minimum in the early thirties. (Not that I am hoping for anything 40 or upward, no, there is no MILF agenda here)

- She describes the manor of a rich man as “a residence nowhere near the third-rate bookseller where I rent a room” (216), locating her residence both outside of the rich parts of town, and informing us that she does not have the greatest of means.

- Likewise, we learn that her “family has more templars than mages. I’m sure that says a lot about me. The point is, I’m not from an old family and I felt as at home in Lady Varantus’s house as Jahvis looked” (218). Within the rigid social hierarchies of Tevinter, she is privileged by magehood, but not by blood. To the degree that Tevene social classes can be broken down so neatly into stratified categories, she seems to be somewhere in the lower ranks of the middle class.

- She is canonically disabled; an amputee wearing a prosthetic leg made of dwarven metal (215). In the comic The Missing #4, we see her prosthetic, it is designed as a cobra standing up in intimidation of an attacker, and the metal seems to be predominantly a bronze or gold with blue or silver accents (6). On her foot on the other leg, she is wearing a boot which has a bronze or gold tip symmetrical to the tail of the cobra, and a high plattformed heel (ibid). Combining that with the fact that she fights and runs with a prosthetic and a heeled boot (TSoM 215, TM4 16), we learn that she expresses immense control over her body.

- Likewise, she approaches all her actions, her appearance, and her communication verbal and physical with a high degree of precision and deliberation. Her outfit is perfectly composed, with white and dark leather as primary colours, the same blue-gold metal that her prosthetic is made out of for accents as well as her belt (which is a coiling snake, TM4 6), a dark turquiose for some of the cloth (such as pants and cravat), a light turquiose for such accents as her fingernails and her meticulously applied eyeliner, and some manner of cap akin to a graduation cap at the right side of her head, in an almost black brown, with gold details. The shape of the cap has the exact same angles as a rhombus as her earrings (TM4 9). The detail on the cap forms a snake. It has been posited by tumblr user @cleric4vampire that even her movement in the trailer reinforces the cobra/snake motive (https://www.tumblr.com/cleric4vampire/752850000700194816). Despite sometimes excrutiatingly long workdays (223), Neve puts an extreme amount of emphasis on her appearance. Even in the comic, while the style does feature very dynamic character movements while talking, her gestures stick out as particularly deliberate; she talks with her hands a lot, and with deliberation (see the appendix of this post for more). This speaks to a plethora of willpower, control, and a desire to maintain a controlled barrier between the self and the larger world.

- While writing this, I have come up with the theory that the blue accents of her apparell might partially be lyrium. If she is literally wearing lyrium makeup, I will marry her.

- The only two offensive types of magic that we see her use are ice magic (e.g. TSoM 226, 227, 235, TM4 16, 17), and a manner of magic that lets her freeze the moisture in the air around a person to stagger them (e.g. TSoM 214, TM4 17). Through cooling the air around herself a bit less, she manages to hide herself in mist (e.g. TSoM 214). She is capable of some healing magic (227).

- She has a network of contacts, acquaintances, and informants all over Minrathous, particularly in its underground.

- She loves salty fried fish (221). This is not only in line with Minrathous being a coastal capital, which has a distinct influence on the caloric inflow into the city and cuisine at large, but also, once again, stresses that she does not have much money at her disposal, by emphasizing that she eats fried fish from a cheap street food stall very regularly (221), which she calls her “fish dinners” (228).

- She canonically has straight dark brown hair, meticulously kept at the left side of her face to keep space for the cap on the right, brown eyes, and brown skin. It is furthermore canon that anyone who has a problem with that or wishes to change that with mods will be exploded via elemental magic. It is furthermore canon that I will not buy Veilguard if the game whitewashes her.

- She is involved with the Shadow Dragons in helping fugitive slaves (TM4 9, 20). She expressly approves of the use of armed violence against the institution of slavery. At one point, she comments: “The cult’s dead god wanted to bring Tevinter back to what it was—to its “glory.” It was nonsense, of course. It always was. The old empire was even more corrupt and heartless than what it is now, no matter how pretty the picture Corypheus painted” (TSoM 221). In her vocal resistance to the empire, she sees it as a good usage of her time to track down Venatori (214). In spite of her resistance against the empire, she considers the city her home and would like it to be better than it is (214, 221).

2. Themes: The noir detective and the empire

It goes without saying that the formational archetype behind the character of Neve Gallus is that of the noir detective. A solipsistic cynic with little means, a private investigator, called to investigate a crime scene in dance with and against the police, depending on the point of the story. The noir detective of the movies of the first half of the 20th century, the formational corpus from which stems the archetype, is distinctly tied to the metropolis; a story that needs the urban context, the urban scenery. While of course featuring a plentitude of settings and configurations, at the root of the archetype rest particularly a white, male, US-American figure. To bring Minrathous in parallel with New York particularly is in so far a welcome change as it means a partial departure from the orientalism underlying a lot of early descriptions of Tevinter in Dragon Age canon. But, to me at least, it raises the question of how well Dragon Age is equipped to tackle the arising thematic implications. Just like the Tevinter Empire, the United States of America is a slave society fueled by the deprivation of Indigenous communities and the physical exploitation of a racialized, disenfanchised class. The metropolis is the core of the imperial core; and Minrathous is, as the largest city of Thedas and the capital of Tevinter, certainly that. The Streets of Minrathous manages but a partial critique of the society of the imperial-colonial metropolis. While Neve remains critical of the templars, the undeniable cop stand-in, the critique remains bound to corruption the higher one goes in the chain of command, as well as the bureaucracy (231). The story, in particular, follows the very dangerous trope commonly found in copaganda that the base-level officers should be allowed to disobey the chain of command and act on their own, particularly when it comes to the deployment of heavy weaponry (234). That the base-level officer is as much an agent of imperial violence as the top of the hierarchy, turning the systemic and depersonal violence of the system into concrete interpersonal violence, cannot be formulated by the text.

Furthermore, the Venatori, in their supremacist-fascistic death cult, remain cast in ableistic terms that deprive their ideology of systemic connectedness: “that didn’t stop remaining loyalists from acting delusional and stirring up trouble when the mood struck. That’s fanatics for you” (213). That fascism is but the logical conclusion of empire, particularly a weakened and collapsing empire, remains just as unacknowledged. And yet, what haunts the story is a profound sense of loneliness and alienation. A rich man estranged and alienated from his nephew because of his fear of social repercussions for the nephews behavior, said nephew dying while grasping to any semblance of connection he can (“He knew what came next. He was searching for whatever company he had left” 215), Neve facing the cultists in their hideout alone because the templar Rana does not want to breach protocoll, hell, even the Venatori preacher making a ridiculous figure, alone and ignored on his soapbox while the masses rush by him and shut him out of their attention; everyone is lonely, seperated by the dividing and isolating forces of the empire. The imperial metropolis condenses people, yet they are emotionally distanced from one another. Neve’s final action in the story is to return to the rich old man, explaining to him that his nephew was trying to be good after all; a post-mortem attempt to mend but one severed connection between humans. Her entire character is defined by the trajectory that comes from wandering almost aimlessly in a desperate attempt to escape the solipsistic nature of the empire. Her defining emotional conflict is with the reality of empire, as much as her status as a brown, disabled, bisexual woman clashes with the roots of the figure of the noir detective. We see by the time of The Missing #4 that she finds a sense of fulfillment in working with the Shadow Dragons for the slaves and against the slavers, which hints at a character arc from TSoM to TM4. As Varric correctly observes, she has a heart of gold (TM4 20), one which she hides behind a particularly controlled facade, as stern as beautiful. How well her character plays out in Veilguard hinges entirely on the stories limited ability to discuss empire in meaningful terms, and the story’s willingness to further explore her emotional arc suggested between TSoM and TM4. I am furthermore worried about how well a series known for its overt centrism can handle the nuances that make her character so great, as well as fearing the reaction by gamers[TM] to having a brown, female, disabled, bisexual detective.

3. Appendix: I am gay for the way she talks with her hands and body

TM4 9

TM4 9

TM4 5

TM4 10

TM4 14

TM4 19