Only The Dead See The End Of War

Modern Heavy Metal from Iraq yes, IRAQ. Vice Mag’s VBS.TV did an excellent documentary of this 4 piece band through their journeys in and out of Iraq into Syria, Turkey and some “strange place” called New Jersey - where they now reside. This is a pretty good mix of Testament (who’s Alex Skolnic produced this), Gorjira and bits of late 80’s-early 90’s traditional bands such as Annihilator.

((1)) Modern dwiddle-dee guitars, horrible drill sergeant vocals (‘ala Lamb of God, etc) later gets into some half-thrash thing that’s not far from the last few Testament records.
((((((2))))) Traditional/Power Metal with really good soaring vocals and very tight riffs, the bits of Arabic percussion sound a tad forced but otherwise, bordering on great.
(((3))) Wailing & bombastic guitar, then lots of stop/starts similar to #2. Some good instrumentation (with the drumming & guitars) but vocally very schizophrenic & has the “dropping the solo in the middle of nowhere” effect.
(((4))) Hard hitting guitars/drums and a good (albeit very typical) modern riff. More schizophrenic vocals that trip over everything from nu-meddle to the worst of NYHC to Prong. But the guitar sound keeps it from sinking.