Style: oriental (mixed vocals)
Review by: Sam
Country: Egypt
Release date: 15-01-2019
NOTE: This album was originally included in Reports from the (progressive metal) underground: January 2019 – The Progressive Subway
I had thought December to be a dull month for this blog, but then I found Riverwood. They played oriental prog metal in what could best be described as a combination between Orphaned Land and Dan Swanö’s Nightingale project. At first I wasn’t convinced about them, but with repeated listens the hooks started to sink in and I couldn’t stop listening. Now it’s one of my most listened to album ever featured on this blog. So when I saw there was another oriental prog metal band for January I was incredibly excited. Enter Ahl Sina.
For a long time I wasn’t sure what I thought about this record. It seemed really good in the beginning (like an 8/10), but there was just somethingoff about it, and it took me ages to find out what it is. Heck, I even had to rewrite my entire review because I put emphasis on the wrong things earlier. But I think I now have an idea where that stems from.
Troops of Pain is an incredibly ambitious album. For starters there are 7 band members, 3 of which play unorthodox instruments (flute, violin and percussion). Most band members come from Egypt, but the violin player, the percussionist and the bass player all hail from Germany. Then the guitarist also does the keyboard parts and you have a huge amount of musical elements present in this band’s music. The record is also quite long at 65 minutes and it’s a concept album. I have not delved into the concept though since a) I couldn’t find the lyrics anywhere and b) I’m terrible at analyzing poetry anyway. The question then of course becomes whether Ahl Sina can live up to the expectations that come with such bold ambition.
In my opinion, the answer to this is a mixed one. I think every element has both its strong and its weak points. So, as always, let’s start with the strong ones. First of all, there’s a plethora of different vocal techniques used. There’s clean singing, gutturals, a really freaky style I have no clue how to describe (eg. The Gift @5:40) and plenty of spoken word sections by different people. The freaky style and the gutturals sound lovely, and the clean singing has a nice phrygian flavor to it which makes it sound more exotic. I think the guitarist also has a very strong performance. His lead melodies are absolute ear-candy (see: Vowed) and he lays down some very strong riffs as well. The metal parts in this album just sound strong in general.
Like I said earlier, Ahl Sina play oriental prog metal. My first review was focused on whether this was a gimmick or not, but after re-listening after a break of a few days I realized this wasn’t fair. The oriental music is ingrained so deep into their sound it becomes impossible to separate. It’s not just that they incorporate straight up oriental parts, but also in how the vocal and guitar melodies are structured and the drumming patterns that the oriental influence becomes apparent. This flavor makes for some really nice moments in the album. There are some beautiful melodies on the violin and the flute (they even have a couple of solos), and the extra percussion is fantastic. I was almost belly dancing to some of the oriental interludes lol.
So it seems this record is all nice and shine, but looks can be deceiving. We now delve into the bad parts. There are two major problems on this album I feel. The first one is the most obvious one (where my previous review centered around) and that is that the vocals, the flute, the violin and the guitar all tend to play the same melodies, at the same time. I am not sure who follows who, but it sounds stale as hell. The clean singing especially lacks memorability, and they really should work on their vocal lines. This record just has a significant lack of catchiness, or rather, memorability, which leads me to my second major critique. And I think this one touches the core of all the problems.
To me, this album just lacks a sense of urgency. The whole 65 minutes it’s either slow or mid-tempo; or there’s an oriental interlude. What I miss is something that just grabs you by the balls with energy and POWER. For example in Dream Theater’s Scenes from a Memory when Beyond This Life comes in you’re just immediately hooked by the power of that main riff, and the verses remain very high energy throughout. There’s no equivalent of that on this album. There are some parts where they speed up the tempo, but it’s only the playing that becomes faster, not the song progression. I’m just missing that “oomph” factor, if that makes sense. So after a while everything just ends up sounding the same, and the 65 minutes long duration (which isn’t even that much for a prog concept album) becomes a drag.
So, there you have it. This band is clearly talented and I love their ambitiousness, but lazy melodic playing, often mediocre vocal lines and a lack of urgency and staying power just hinders me from enjoying this as it’s intended to. My interest in oriental prog metal hasn’t diminished, but I now realize not all is good. That said though, I’m definitely interested to see where this band goes next. Should they improve on their flaws, we might just have a very, very good band on our hands.
Recommended tracks: The Gift, Vowed, Enlightenment Discarded
Recommended for fans of: Orphaned Land, Subterranean Masquerade, traditional prog metal
Final verdict: 6.5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Ahl Sina is:
– Moustafa Troll (vocals)
– Shung (guitars, keyboards)
– Shaadie Khoury (drums)
– Marcel Hauptmann (bass)
– Amr El Zanaty (Percussion)
– Ahmed El Eskandarany (flute, ney)
– Stephanie Pfaffenzeller (violin, viola)
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