Back to downtown, Cairo, the same place Metal Station took place – Rawabet theater, anticipation was surrounding this one concert with a “Too heavy to handle” bands who agreed on taking a leap of faith towards spreading a very tight Metal map – moving their music, their audience’s land – in a move even we didn’t see coming. The unspoken agreement between most of the Egyptian bands does never stop pleasing and delivering music to fans.

I was running solo this time which gave me more time to snoop around Rawabet. The number of supporting musicians didn’t go down by time and by multiple gigs in a matter of weeks. Many names from such as Origin, Medic, MaScaRa, Destiny In Chains and others showed up supporting their buddies and encouraging the fans.

Starting THE RETURN was Invaders with the same set list we listened to rocking out earlier in Enraged & Ivaders: Leave your sanity at the door, same line-up and vocals, and a plus point for sounding better this time.

After that was Enraged’s same insanity we saw back in El Sawi Culture Wheel: Leave your sanity at the door, the set list didn’t have any changes. This band is that crazy.. and good. But still crazy!

Scarab’s Sammy Sayed made his appearance as “Mr. Skizzle Zee” who scared the hell out of many fresh faces, it was a hell of a scene to watch the “what-the-hell-is-that?!” look on their faces. Notable at the end that the female vocal Rasha wasn’t at her best that night, hard luck ma’am.

The sound system was pretty impressive, but there was something very wrong with its engineer, you could clearly hear glitches and sound issues as the gig went on.

Spotlights from behind the scenes:
Enraged‘s Wael O invited a bunch of little stray kids, who were trying to discover the place to watch from the stage side.

The whole house was very cooperative, a new spirit was compelling all the people of metal to work together. For example: Ismaeel of Crescent went to fans and told them to hurry inside for Enraged was gonna start.

Back to the massacre, and more sound issues while the Melodic DeathDoom machines SINPROPHECY, with notable solid guitar playing from Fada’y and Sheva the Axe holders. They started with “Tears of A Sinner” followed by “Calling the Undead”; both you can check out below.

Suddenly Sayed calls for Zander (D.I.C) on stage, hands him a mic, and “End of The Tyrant” blows out in our faces. Things everyone noticed about both of them, is Sayed started using pure Death Metal’s well-paced vocaling style, on the other hand Zander proved his true transition from a normal Metalcore front man to a full geared Deathcore vocalist, such sound ruined by an awful mic settings that brought out the dryness of his voice. Needless to say, it was louder than the music. You can check out the track below:

Next track was painful. The whole band admitted they over-played themselves doing it this time, because you can’t play your friend’s farewell while smiling and looking badass. “Farewell bird of prey” is one of SINPROPHECY’s new masterpieces according to a quick survey we did with the audience. Back to the song, it was hurtful. It was full of emotions and anger, the anger of losing a brother who all of us will never see again, Mahmoud Sakr who was a remarkable Death Metal vocalist himself back in the days with his band WORM, try to mix all those meanings into one song and it won’t be different than this one we are listening to:

Sakr, May your soul rest in peace!

Once again the band use the harmony factor against the pure DeathDoom you expect. And yes, they successfully proved themselves as a skilled musical group. After that they played “Spectrum Illusion” from the upcoming album, followed by signature track “The Summoning” with a little surprise: Sayed actually didn’t sing it. He back-vocaled one of the audience called Ahmed Derbawy, a move that grabbed attention and respect of all fans. The guy was impressive, he was taken by surprise but did a tight performance himself.

It would be awkward and depressive to attend a DeathDoom act without enjoying a Doom-ish touch, right?

This is when they decided doing another new track, “You Are the One Who Will Smile at My Funeral”, I’m not by any means a Doom Metal fan, but the audience liked it, a soothing one after the previous tracks.

And guys? Where is Hiba the female vocalist?

The last to conquer the stage was the fan-crowned “The Egyptian equivalent of BEHEMOTH”, the Blackened Death Metal band CRESCENT, one of the oldest bands in the whole Egyptian music scene. Their comeback was established with the upcoming album “Pyramid Slaves” which we had two inside looks on it from the freshly released play through video for the main track, and a streaming track for “An ode to Qadish“.

Sound issues took the band a bit out of concentration but they pulled off a beefy set of tracks such as: An ode to Qadish, Ra men-kheper, Gates of the sun, Temple of the divine gods and Pyramid Slaves.

Their music is still new to most of Egyptian listeners who are more familiar with breakdowns and melodic stuff, but a too-heavy-to-ignore music like Blackened Death is still in the phase of standing still to listen closely and judge. But no worries CRESCENT, you are on the right path.

Thanks to Mr. Mahmoud Amr, for his outstanding efforts on documenting most of the tracks played across the gig. You sir are the man!

Thanks to the ladies Yara Weheba and Doaa Mohamed. Especially Yara for providing some of the coolest shots of the bands in such short notice.

Starting with Pray, a heavy starter for the journey, the type of track that gets you head banging, the aggressive harmony between the drum line, the high guitar distortion, and the amazing brand new vocal technique Cherine that the band’s singer and leader uses in the track, which deserves a great deal of attention because that’s a female brutal singer who jumped between two voice pitches in the same line.

Continuing with the main theme of the band’s path of writing music that speaks of what’s hidden, the Main track Comes Around You gives the listener a feeling being lost under an ocean wave. Why? By its melodic start the violin and drums pave the way to a double vocal line, all clean at first, then it goes darker and harsher as the song goes on. Ever heard of a “Sad breakdown”? Well you can feel as confused as I felt from the minute 2:30. The violin line makes you stop and think without losing the urge to follow the breakdown.

The lead guitar makes the way to the blast of drumming at the start of the 3rd track “10 years” which makes a listener feel like he’s smack in the middle of a fight. It’s a final message to whoever deserved it, drawn by instrumental playful harmony that gives birth to a track that makes you think…not just move your head.

Then comes the softest track opener for the whole EP, closing the act with “Repulsive” the band once again prove that so much music and so many emotions can be contained in just two and a half minutes. The Violin once again lay a dark layout on a track, which sends you the message “I’m not a track…I’m a state of mind.”