Band:	Ahoora
Album:	All In Blood With You
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	2007
A review by:	Jeff

01. Heart Of Darkness
02. Out Of Mind Walls
03. A History Of Extinction
04. Between Maybe & Never
05. The Departed
06. The Journeyman
07. Hunger Within

Metal is not welcome in Iran but some people believe in this music and despite the problems that they could have playing it, they still find a way to release Metal albums. The guys of Ahora are true metalheads and I can only worship them for their courage and devotion to our favorite musical genre. In addition to have balls to do it, Ahora crew is composed of really good writers and their last album, "All In Blood With You" is just an excellent release. This is a great discovery no doubt?

Ahora can be labeled as a Power Thrash Metal band with Progressive influences, which mean that they can certainly be compared to Iced Earth but also Nevermore. The riffs featured on "All In Blood With You" are all really strong and extremely aggressive. Like on "Burnt Offerings" for example we have a lot of big hypnotic riffs which smells napalm and of course good ol' American Thrash. The songs are also complex though, with different original deep structures which give a really interesting Progressive side to the music. Don't expect anything simple and repetitive here, all the songs have good choruses of course but also numerous arpeggio and calm like even atmospheric passages. All in all "All In Blood With You" is a really varied album which is dark and sad actually but which can become extremely heavy and aggressive too. Honestly, if you like the tortured dark side of some of the Iced Earth compositions, you'll like this release.

Even if it's not easy to produce music in Iran, the production of "All In Blood With You" remains correct. Sure this is not limpid but the song is ok. I only wish that I could listen to the album with the same real professional technical means that we have in Europe or USA? It could be really impressive? All the musicians are talented. The bassist is omnipresent and plays technical bass lines, when the lead guitarist does really good difficult soli. The singer is also really good and his voice will maybe remember you the one of Matt Barlow when he uses to sing with his big beautiful deep voice. That's just classy and it's good to know that we have such good combos in unknown Metal countries. Just imagine the potential of new good bands that we can find all around the world?

"All In Blood With You" is a great album. Maybe that some parts are a bit too slow and lack a bit of Power, but all in all this is a classy album which leads me to the conclusion that we will probably discover lot of new talented bands coming from exotic Metal countries in the future. That's just great and simply gives me hopes in Metal. Just have a look at Ahora website and support a band which deserves it. I just hope that an occidental label could signe them (even if I doubt that it could be easy...). Thumb up anyway to these real Metalheads!