To review a band from a country like Iran is pretty interesting since this country has an interesting history and a controversial political and religious views that would keep the metal scene under wraps, so it should be cool to get exposed to such music from such a country.
Kahtmayan is based in Tehran and it was formed in 2003, and the meaning of the name of the band according to the band’s history section in their official website is the 26th night of the Persian calendar. This album is only instrumental metal which would mean that this review will only focus on their musical technicality and execution, since the band claimed in their official website the following:
“The main idea behind Kahtmayan was creating music that was based upon eastern melodies and rhythms along with a dark magical atmosphere.”
And after reading a bit more about the band’s history, they mentioned that their line up got changed and so their genre of music changed since Thrash Metal is the main genre of metal in Iran, and that the government stood against having vocals in their band which lead to them taking the path of playing Instrumental Thrash Metal, which would show the struggle that metal music faces in the Persian lands.
When I first hit the play button on my music player , I wasn’t really impressed with the first 2 or 3 tracks , but then the album got really interesting with the way it was played and executed. To start off with in general on how the album sounded like, it was atmospheric with a lot of keyboard synths which was the interesting part of the whole album – it even reminded me a bit with the synth sounds that some of the main stream Iranian music that I saw on TV when I was bored and flicking through channels on my satellite receiver for some reason – and with a very slight hint of folk keys in there, but I’m not really sure about that part.
The technicality of the guitarist gained my respect since it sounded really professional and with a whole lot of taping techniques, hammering, and interesting licks and slides that for some reason sounded a bit like what would Joe Satriani do if he joined a Thrash Metal band. I also noticed that the band didn’t keep the album Thrashy all the way. That would indicate that they were more on the progressive side of things, the sounds went from atmospheric to dark to somewhat mystical, which I have to say that the keyboardist nailed it with his choices of synths.
The missing element in all of this – and I know it’s not the band’s fault – is the vocals and what would be their own lyrical theme, if that element was present in the band I would feel that it would bridge the gap in their music that I would say with all due respect is really good, but I feel that they made the music this way so when they have the chance of having a vocalist, they would have the music ready for him to rip out his vocal abilities onto them.
In conclusion, they are a skillful band that with better luck would be band to wait for net album to see how they would grow musically.
Here is one of their tracks that caught my attention from their album, ‘Irreversible’. Check below.
