WASAYA

I am not sure if I have ever come across any musical project from Syria, but that is what we have here with the second album from Wasaya, which features Tarek Shehabi (guitars, piano, keyboards, synth, backing vocals) Aram Kalousdian (drums). This five-track album features five different bassists and eight different singers, and while Marco Gluhmann (Sylvan) is probably the most recognised name, everyone is up to the task of working with a multi-instrumentalist who is as adept on keyboards as he is on guitar. This is a prog metal release, with less Arabian influences than one might expect from a musician living in Damacus, but enough that it stays interesting.

This is music based on complex time signatures and interplay between different instruments, Apparently the 2014 debut, 'Garden of Doubts' was a solo affair, but by bringing in a drummer who provides the foundation as well as assisting in driving the music in new directions there is no doubt he has upped the game. I don't know why he has brought in bassists (even though we are talking about Kristoffer Gildenlöw (Ex. Pain Of Salvation), Franck Hermanny (Adagio), Johan Niemann (Evergrey), Andrea Arcangeli (DGM) and Simon Andersson (Dark Water)) as I know he could have done the job himself, but it has allowed for different styles at the bottom end. The different singers does mean this has much more of a project feel than a band, but the guitar and keyboard interplay more than makes up for it. There are times when the music takes a dramatic shift, as it does near the end of "If I Leave Today" where there is a change in time signature, vocal approach and way more symphonic rushing headlong into growls. Overall this is an interesting release and let us hope it is not so long to the next one.