Metal meets kyl-kobyz, a Kazakh ethnic instrument, in ZaRRaZa’s new music video for “The Grudge ’19.”
Watch it here: https://youtu.be/8DBiUFsL77A
The video was filmed in the mountains around Big Almaty Lake in Almaty, Kazakhstan and features guest musician Anar Kassymova playing kobyz and kyl-kobyz. The band said of the filming process, “There is a belief that every time someone approach sacred places in the mountains, spirits send out bad weather to keep away uninvited guests. It seems a stone bowl of giant boulders near the Big Almaty Lake is such a special place. While filming on the lake went smoothly, the same task in stone bowl was a challenge. Every time we started shooting, it was snowing. When we stopped filming, the snow stopped too. We’d start to shoot again — and again, the snow! But in the video, it looks good. No harm done.”
“The Grudge ’19” is off ZaRRaZa’s upcoming EP Rotten Remains, due out November 29, 2019.
Pre-order available here: https://zarraza.bandcamp.com/album/rotten-remains
About ZaRRaZa:
Kazakhstan may be the wrong part of the planet to play extreme metal, but ZaRRaZa (which means an “infection” or “unbearable person” in Russian) aren’t the kind of band to let a little thing like geography stop them.
Having formed in 2012 with their Bullets & Beliefs demo, ZaRRaZa has quickly jumped to the head of the metal pack in Central Asia. Not only has the band been featured in Metal Hammer’s legendary “United Nations” series, but they have also had their music reviewed by Asking Alexandria!
Their hard work culminated in being named one of the top five best bands in Central Asia as per regional powerhouse Kaktakto.com. The first band to have done a DIY tour in the region back in 2013 on the back of their Cutting Meat. Fast & Loud EP, they seem to eagerly be leaping from peak to peak.
In 2014, the band toured with the Austrian grindcore freaks in VxPxOxAxAxWxAxMxC. This led to opportunities not just in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, but also the chance to open for groups like TYR, ROTTING CHRIST and ARKONA. They even were able to tour with Hungarian icons, EKTOMORF in 2018 and with metal gods SEPULTURA (2019). On October 24 band will open show in Almaty (Kazakhstan’s largest city) for HAIL! Project.
This willingness to slug it out makes sense for a band who sings about controlling your inner demons and using them to resist oppression of any kind. After years of inner turmoil and grinding it out in the underground the band released their first full length, Necroshiva, in 2018. It was recorded in Almaty, then mixed in Moscow by Arkadiy Navaho (KATALEPSY, SIBERIAN MEAT GRINDER).
On May 11, 2019 Necroshiva was released in China via MusicDish. The cover art, done by Vladimir Chebakov, was recently featured in the book Heavy Metal Artwork: Masterpieces, 2018.
Now on the eve of releasing the Rotten Remains EP, it seems like the future has never been brighter for these Kazakh extreme metal devotees.
ZaRRaZa is:
- Nick Khalabuzar – guitars & vocal, dombra (wRRong Song’19”)
- Ruslan Konon – drums
- Dan Eternal – guitar
- Adil Aliakpar – bass (since February 2019)
- Eugene Hablack – bass on all EP tracks
Additional Musicians featured on Rotten Remains
- Multi-instrumentalist Anar Kassymova (kobyz & qyl-kobyz on “The Grudge’19”)
- Azim Abdulaev — keyboards on intro to “Failed Apocalypse’19”
- Drums recorded at ID Sound Studio (Almaty, Kazakhstan) in the September 2018 and February 2019.
Guitars and vocals recorded at ZARRAZA home studio in March-May of 2019.
Mixed and mastered by Arkadiy Navaho, Cosmos Studio.
Cover artwork and CD design by Vladimir “Smerdulak” Chebakov.
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