NEMRUD

This album follows the same space rock model as Nemrud's previous albums Ritual and Journey of The Shaman, but shows a great deal more confidence on the part of the band. Nemrud's career is dominated by concept albums with a somewhat gentle space rock vibe. There is a concept here to tell us their own creation story. This is hard psych to be sure. Drums kicks scream through walls of distortion and the guitars are turned up to eleven. Levent Candas, the band's new bassist, might enjoy some of the credit for them tightening up their act, since the rhythm section this time around attains the compelling, hypnotic intensity that the likes of Hawkwind were enjoying at the time. In all though, a superb collection of tracks, and certainly one of Nemrud's finest albums. Pink Floyd and Camel influences are undeniable, and the band make no attempt to disguise them. There are though some majestic sounds and fine compositions here. Nemrud easly deserve 5 stars without question, recommended not only for Nemrud fans but for those who listen to good spacey progressive music in general. Excellent.

A stellar album, combining the distorted, evil synthesizer and bass of Horizont's A Portrait of a Boy with a heavily Camel inspired feeling guitar. A stellar album with a beautiful cover. "The Euphrates" is a clear combination of influences and manages to sound unique and new while still having a rich vintage vibe.

The vocals are iffy, but the music far more than makes up for it.

The water sounds at the beginning of "The Euphrates" is also very pleasing and reminds me of a Tarkovsky movie, so I'll give that point to the record as well.

Overall, it's a pleasing blend of Camel's more instrumental pieces, even a little "Snowgoose"-esque, with a heavy backing to drive it forward without making it muddy or sterilized, like I find some prog-metal releases to be. Rich without being overly bombastic. I'd call it one of the best releases of modern progressive, drawing it back to its roots without being plain nostalgia.

Easily my favorite Nemrud album. Every track on this album is solid gold, and there is no filler. There is phenomenal performance by every member on this album, especially Mert Gocay(guitar/vox) and Mert Alkaya(drum).

The first thing that caught my attention right away, besides Gocay's refined guitar and vocal execution; were the lyrics written for this album. Astonishing and breathtaking. Unpretentious, clean, emotive, meaningful inline with the story. Obviously to me, as you have noticed; the album emanates such mysticism and power unrevealed by the band at this point, turning this experience so new, so unique, that claims for unspoken recognition.

"Gods Of The Mountain" This track is terrific. It has an excellent music flow, great composition with a very tight structural integrity whereby the blend of melodies are composed in such a way that can lift up your emotion. The changing tempo is controlled in a manageable way, there is no sudden change as the transitions between musical segments are crafted smoothly by the band. When the interlude starts with a thunder and guitar start work, that's when the ultimate enjoyment of this track come to your mind. What a wonderful lead guitar!

"Lion Of Commagene" A very dark song with ambient noises and a clean and disturtion guitars are strumming. Gocay's voice is at its best here, and new member Candas plays tiny bass solos too. As this atmosphere reaches its zenith, a churchlike organ meets with lovely dramatic vocal.

"The Euphrates" Really it's just less progressive and more strait forward alternative rock.Kicks off the B side of the album with a synth multi-layered interlude that soon gives way to an exhibition of maximum bombast - effective melodic lines, complex rhythm patterns, and ballsy solos on guitar and keyboard.

"Forsaken Throne" Epic masterpiece. Trademark Nemrud, slowly feeding you genius in the form of music. The is the best and the most progressive one of the album along with the opening track. Gocay sings very well in mellow parts, more catchy and atmospheric. The track has very well synchronized fast parts, really bringing emotion and addiction.

In recent times, there have been quite a few years between Nemrud releases, and I would say that in this case the approach of the band taking their time to craft and perfect an album in this manner really pays off. For anyone interested in Turkish Progressive Rock, "Nemrud" is an essential release. Do not miss out on it.

Review # 31. For those who aren't familiar with Nemrud, I should start this post by saying that they are a Heavy/Psychedelic/Space Rock band from Turkey. Although they have many Progressive Rock elements in their music, they are definitely not a Progressive Rock band.

Their discography consists of 3 studio albums so far, all of them really good and interesting ones. First came 'Journey of the Shaman' in 2010, 3 years later they released 'Ritual', and a few months ago their latest album named as 'Nemrud'. All 3 albums, share some common characteristics, such as the long hypnotizing compositions, (including big instrumental passages in each one of them), and the few number of songs included in each of their albums . 'Journey of the Shaman' was including just 3 songs, which were actually the 3 parts of one big song, with the shortest one being 12 minutes long. 'Ritual' was including 4 songs, with two of them being over 10 minutes long. As you can understand, 'Nemrud' couldn't be very different. It includes 4 tracks, all of them over 11 minutes long, but there is a special (or limited) edition as well, which is including 2 of the album's songs in "Radio edit" versions. This is something really good and helpful, especially for people who are involved with radio stations. (Like myself for example). These 2 songs are' God of the Mountain' and the really beautiful 'Forsaken Throne'.

Although the general style is more or less the same like in their previous albums, I dare say that this album sounds more "mature" more "sophisticated" and it seems that the band members improved their technique and gained more confidence in comparison with the previous works. The only "weak" spot I found is the vocals, but it is something you are getting used to, and stops bothering you after a couple of listens.

I am not going to write anything about each song separately, because when I am playing the album I listened to it as a whole, but I should mention that the closing song 'Forsaken Throne' is my favorite one. (In both versions). (Also Euphrates is a fantastic tune).

The important thing is that, with each listening the album "grows" in you. You start noticing more and more details and musical turns that you haven't noticed before, and that is surely something we should congratulate the band for, because it means that these guys payed a lot of attention in the details, and did a really good job. I believe that this is an album worth to become more famous and more people should listen to it. Nemrud is a good band which shows significant improvement with every new release. My rating would be: 3.5 out of 5.0 stars

Nemrud managed to build up their unique progressive sound and continue to evolve that sound in every album they released. Debut album; Journey of The Shaman, saw the band settling down to their own prog rock soundscape, but Ritual took a leap in a better direction by improving the sound they had created. S/T album begins where band left off, as it began with the simplistic "Light" but ended with the more complicated and experimental "Ritual". That sound pushed the limits of music and continued to do so on this excellent follow up album. 'Nemrud' like previous albums, was four songs across a conceptual album in which the 4 songs were interlaced conceptually and musically, forming a symphony of 4 movements. There is actually very little that resembles traditional pop song structure. The beauty is that it all holds together as one piece, without seeming directionless. They are complete compositions, with a commonality.

The album opens with the 11ish minute "Gods of the Mountain". This gives Keyboard, Bass and Drum chance to warm up at the begining but they really gets his chance to shine when the guitar and keyboard battle comes in, probably one of the best examples of this technique like Eloy did in the past. Mert Göçay is incredible here as the band switches from the frantic battle and subtley starts to mellow out. Göçay introduces some excellent emotional guitar with a sort of phaser effect, which he used previous albums. This beautifully progresses into vocals begins. This gently lulls the song to its close with tremendous guitar work often creeping above incredible harmonies. The catchy chorus hook will settle in your brain after a few listens. Definitely a keeper in the Nemrud greatest hits package.

'Lion of Commagene' starts a steady rhythm and some glorious guitar and keyboard flourishes. Tempo changes and locks into a twisted meter and some incredible lead guitar trade offs. Then it settles into a haunting clean guitar motif and reverberated vocals on Church organ. Soft Hammond soundscapes encapsulating a Pink Floyd atmosphere. The mood swings from dramatic tension to a very heartfelt gentle emotion at the end. This is so catchy it always jumps out on the album. The melodies are as good as Nemrud gets.

'The Euphrates' is one of Nemrud' most beautiful pieces, crafted to perfection full of flowing structural change and the whole band playing to their best abilities. The music enters slowly through the soft touch of Organ fills and vocal work. This part gives an excellent work of acoustic guitar that serves as main rhythm section of the music which is led by keyboard solo plus drums. The music turns into quiet passage when effect guitar starts to enter the music but it then moves into more complex arrangements. Synthesizer solo also enriches the textures of this track.

The album ends with 'Forsaken Throne'. It is a great finisher, with the typical Nemrud instrumental passages, added with the usual great chorus. The music enters with solitude wind sound than guitar and keyboard making double Tangerine Dream style, very interesting flood till the music evolve another dimention. Second section is really beautiful dive to attractive synthesis of folk music and symphonic rock emulating classical music philosophies with very powerful emphasis. Göçay's lead vocal over an acoustic and organ-and-pedals is amazing, pure, powerful, haunting and the driving conclusion with a gorgeous guitar solo is divine. Even in the things seem to get a bit repetitive, the music still has enough momentum to hold your attention. Heavy and solid bass lines combined wonderfully with machine-gun drum work and guitar riffs. The music flows smoothly. Structurally, this epic comprises various forms of music with a balanced combination between high and low points. In some segments there are atmospheric nuance combined with dynamic combination. Nemrud showed off again a new definition of their sound. A good thing about this album what is missing from most others is that it was a mixture of proggresive rock songs and standard structured songs. This managed to attract more people into liking their sound.

Overall, 'Nemrud' is a very good album indeed, but not faultless. It´s masterpiece quality but it gets too nice and poppy at times for my taste and therefore 4,5 stars round up to 5. It´s highly recommendable though.

For a band, producing a self-titled album several releases into your career makes a certain statement - it suggests a certain maturity has been reached, that you've found your feet, established your sound, and are ready to put forth a distinctive manifesto of what your musical project is all about.

In the case of Nemrud's self-titled third album, the Turkish space rock unit seems to have decided that their musical mission is to pick up the distinctive style of Eloy and carry it forwards into a new era, with the end result being an album which, if you slipped it into the Eloy discography, would probably be acclaimed as the best thing they've done since the 1970s. Mert Göçay's performance, in particular, with his distinctive guitar tone and his vocal style, puts me in mind of nothing less than the Eloy of the Ocean/Silent Cries and Mighty Echoes sort of era.

Nonetheless, it would be very wrong to write this album off as a mere exercise in cloning the Eloy sound; more modern electronics and synthesisers are integrated with a greater smoothness than I think Eloy themselves managed, and as with the preceding Ritual the extensive instrumental breaks have a character of their own. Whilst I wouldn't call it an all-time classic, I certainly think it's the best Nemrud release I've heard so far, and certainly deserves to get them attention from anyone who enjoys the particular brand of space rock that Eloy pioneered and which few others have taken forwards (Anyone's Daughter perhaps being the only example that comes to mind).