Alif is the title of the second studio album by Algerian death metal trio Lelahell, for which the band recently launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. The campaign is active for three weeks; you can head to the campaign’s page and support the band in reaching the goal what will allow them to raise the funds for the album artwork, album’s production, production of a music video and a band merchandise.
The founder of the band, singer and guitarist Redouane Aouameur commented: “Our campaign is running since 5 weeks and will end in 3 weeks. We expect to get at least 50% of the requested amount this will help us to have a very good quality record mixed and mastered in the Hertz Studio, the sound that will perfectly feet to this album.”
The title of the album is inspired by the first letter of the Arabic alphabet. In Arabic, alif is the first letter in the alphabet, and it is used in Arabic calligraphy to determine the size of the following characters. Lelahell say they chose the title as this album “will be the main musical reference of the next upcoming releases.”
The trio’s new album, Alif, is slated as the group’s second full-length album and third release since the band’s formation in 2010. Lelahell are set to record at Hertz Studio in Poland under the guidance of well-known producers — the Wiesławscy brothers.
Support Lelahell by donating through the Indiegogo campaign, and follow them on Facebookfor future updates.
About Lelahell:
Founded in 2010 by metal veteran Redouane Aouameur, Lelahell is an Algerian death metal band hailing from Algiers. The trio comprises of Redouane “Lelahel” Aouameur (guitars, vocals), Ramzy Curse (bass) and Slaveblaster (drums). Lelahell have released one EP, Al Intihar(Goressimo Records, 2012), and one full alubum, Al Insane… The (Re)birth of Abderrahmane(HPGDP, 2014). The band also launched a documentary in 2016 titled Highway to Lelahell – An Algerian Metal Documentary, available for streaming on YouTube, presenting viewers with a solid history lesson on Algeria’s metal scene. The band have also embarked on three European tours, and also participated in festivals in Europe.
Progressive rock’s avant garde wing has always acted as a kind of disciplined version of its more mainstream cousin, dependent on self-imposed constraints, those kinds of “oblique strategies” that Brian Eno and his expanding circle of collaborators employed to spur, and rein in, their impulses. The cross-pollination of these two (sometimes warring) factions — at least as that dichotomy might have been posed by critics — was most evident in the 1970s, and was particularly expressed in the Venn diagram that was Roxy Music and King Crimson, the kind of built-in tension that ultimately made Eno and Fripp’s projects guilty of indulgence — often too smart for their own good — but also wildly interesting. Within this world landed Laurie Anderson, a New York-based performance artist whose albums in the 80s employed many of the aforementioned Eno/Crimson cast of characters (in addition to the No Wave artists Eno became associated with), and whose songs, due to their melodic charm, could work their way into the popular consciousness to such a degree that rare was the record collection by decade’s end that — if it included a Talking Heads or Belew-era Crimson album — didn’t include at least one of her works. Her influence is inestimable. “Gravity’s Angel” is from the album Mister Heartbreak, and captures her sound and approach: a partiality to electronic instruments, experimentation abetted by first-class Crimon-ish musos (Adrian Belew, Bill Laswell, Peter Gabriel), and an emphasis on finding a relief of humanity against a plane that could be coldly distant, i.e., exploring the human condition in the late 20th century. My understanding via Wikipedia is that she asked Thomas Pynchon if she could musical-ize Gravity’s Rainbow, and he replied, well, yes, if she could do so with only a banjo. That didn’t happen, but this did:
Progarchy 