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NEMRUD

Psychedelic/Space Rock • Turkey


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Nemrud biography
Founded in Istanbul, Turkey in 2008

NEMRUD was established by Mert Göçay, Harun Sönmez and Aycan Sarı. By the time the band had its current formation, there had been several changes in the composition of band members. The current line-up was formed with the participation of both Mert Alkaya and Mert Topel in 2010 and Levent Candaş in 2015 as band members.

NEMRUD have released their first two conceptual progressive rock albums "Journey of the Shaman"(2010) and "Ritual"(2013) on Musea Records from France. In late 2015 NEMRUD continued the recordings with a conceptual S/T album, released by Rainbow45 Records from Turkey.

The group is named after Mount Nemrut; the 2150m high mountain lies in southestern Turkey, known by tomb-sanctuary built in 62bc by King Antiochus I Theos of Commageme on the top mouintain overlooking The Euphrates Valley. Mount Nemrut is the place embracing the Middle of the Ground and the place that first album character 'Mitos' passes by while going to the underground. This mountain is at a sacred place which is the intersection point of East and West, two worlds that mankind have been believing for hundreds of years.

NEMRUD has gone beyond the Turkish standard rock or popular line-chorus structured songs and pushed the technical and composition limits of rock music. Besides, there are classic, jazz and avant-garde components in their compositions. Their music shows the general characteristics of Progressive Rock such as changing melodies and rhythms, refrains from repetition, conceptual and abstract lyrics. The admiration of the band for the golden era of progressive rock reflects itself in the epical stories used in the albums. Their albums are referring to the golden 1970s era and made up of reminiscences to Eloy, Pink Floyd, Yes, Camel and other bands with psychedelic and symphonic leanings.

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NEMRUD discography


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NEMRUD top albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

3.89 | 174 ratings
Journey Of The Shaman
2010
4.13 | 413 ratings
Ritual
2013
4.04 | 244 ratings
Nemrud
2016

NEMRUD Live Albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

NEMRUD Videos (DVD, Blu-ray, VHS etc)

NEMRUD Boxset & Compilations (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

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NEMRUD Reviews


Showing last 10 reviews only
 Ritual by NEMRUD album cover Studio Album, 2013
4.13 | 413 ratings

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Ritual
Nemrud Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by bartymj

4 stars 1. In My Mind (10:22) - starts with a minute of default spacescape atmospheric noise which evokes imagery of a landing spaceship, before building into an Eloy-esque slow paced guitar driven beat. Lyrics in slightly broken English are simplistic and covers as many prog cliches as possible within 60 seconds (darkness, fear, dreams shadows). As the synth builds into a dreamy section we are treated to some of the vaguest of default nonsense lyrics: "The time has come, the music almost begun". The fractured English is of course excusable given the band's native language but there is an element of crowbarring in lyrics just so that they rhyme, particularly in the megaphone-spoken mid-section: "The gates of gream lie waiting as you see, there's not much to say just follow me". However, the melodic instrumental section, particularly from the synth organ is very well put together, before we're back to the lyrics, this time misquoting Simon and Garfunkel: "Welcome darkness my restless friend", providing another cliche: "opened my eyes but I can not see", and a final slightly clunky line "What is being done to me?" before we're back to the instrumentals, which for the final two minutes moves from something which wouldn't be out of place at the back end of Dark Side of the Moon to a heavier Steven Wilson style sound. Ignoring the lyrics themselves, the vocals are solid and instrumentally it is a good 10 minute piece.

The detail above also summarises the album as a whole - the lyrics can make you grimace at times but if you focus more on the composition as a whole it is solid. In between tracks there is quite a lot of hiss for whatever reason, which is a bit irritating.

2. Sorrow by Oneself (7:46) - First half is incredibly Eloy. See 'Point of No Return'. As above the lyrics are a little weak but overall a decent sounding first half of the track before the second half returns to a style more reminiscent of Pink Floyd's Animals. Surprisingly though before this really gets going we switch to quite an upbeat riff towards the end of the track which again finishes with a lot of hiss.

3. Light (2:18) - A short dreamy number which doesn't add much other than to build into the final epic-length title track.

4. Ritual (18:24) - The intro to the track does its name some justice, with tension-building off-key piano and percussion easily evoking imagery of a dark sacrificial rite of passage. Again, the trick here is to avoid listening to the exact lyrics and focus on the mood and melody of the track which is very very good. Essentially, pick any of the most popular prog albums of the late 70s/early 80s and you can probably pick out similarities to parts of this track. There's even a point half way through where if you're not paying attention you'll think you're listening to Dire Straits' Sultans of Swing. Against my better judgement I quite like it, even if later on the lyrical torture ends at a peak: "go to sleep and dream again... soon your hopes will rise and then... from all this gloom life can start anew... and there'll be no fear soon". After this though there's another 5 instrumental minutes so you're able to forget the lyrics as the tune appears to slow to a close, only to start back up again with a powerful and dark sounding final thrash which i'd compare to Porcupine Tree's Signify. I'd even go far as saying that this final section of darker, heavier prog is the piece de resistance of the album, and the reason why at the last minute I've bumped this up from 3* to 4*. Finally, that "spaceship" from the start departs into the white noise hiss.

 Ritual by NEMRUD album cover Studio Album, 2013
4.13 | 413 ratings

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Ritual
Nemrud Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by mariorockprog

4 stars The second album by Nemrud, a Turkish band influenced mainly by Pink Floyd and Eloy, but also other classic symphonic prog bands like yes, genesis, camel, and etcetera. The name of the band came from a turkish high mountain that has statues of ancient gods and is a sacred place. It is always welcome to have new bands with good quality of music, as I said previously this album is mainly space rock that have a good structures without exaggerating with jams, but also includes symphonic passages that add variability in the music composition. The vocals also adds a good feeling to the music. However, not all the music is excellent, and there are parts where the quality of music diminish and its not consistent. Finally, I considered it a excellent addition to any prog collection, but far from being a masterpiece.
 Journey Of The Shaman by NEMRUD album cover Studio Album, 2010
3.89 | 174 ratings

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Journey Of The Shaman
Nemrud Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by TenYearsAfter

3 stars According to prime mover and bank worker Mert Gocay listening to a Pink Floyd album at the age of 15 totally changed his view on music: he went back to the basic of progressive rock and ended up listening millions of times to the Classic Prog bands. As a young guitar player Mert loved David Gilmour and Andy Latimer their emotional sound. But in those days he had difficulties to cope with the world around him and he didn't pick up his guitar in anger, for almost ten years. But two strange events inspired him to play again. He won an electric guitar in a competition on a TV music show and shortly after he got the chance to meet his favourite musician Frank Bornemann. Mert was so inspired by this meeting with his musical hero and winning the guitar that he decided to create his own music and make an album, now inspired by Frank Bornemann with his legenadary German band Eloy. This resulted in the recording of his debut CD Journey Of The Shaman album, completed fully as analog in November 2009 at Studio 18, one of the most important studios of Turkey. The band had some troubles to release the album in first place, because nobody knew about the complex basics of progressive rock. But in the end they found a right guy to do it, after more than eight months so the release was in 2010. Nemrud played their progrock at special stages in Istanbul and it was very impressive spiritual ambiance in live shows, the reactions of the audiences were great. To anybody's surprise their album Journey Of The Shaman was sold out in short period. But then French progrock label Musea Records was interested and released the CD in 2010 on their Parallele label. And in 2014 it was even released as a LP in Turkey, one year after their second effort named Ritual and two years before their third, eponymous album.

The album contains 3 parts (between 11 and 18 minutes), each part is divided into 3 or 4 sections.

The first part alternates between dreamy and compelling interludes, the combination of English vocals with an obvious accent and the sound of the guitar and organ strongly reminds me of known German proggers Eloy (Inside- Ocean era). Part 1 ends with slow synthesizer flights and sensitive guitar runs, wonderful cosmic prog! The second part features a space rock sound that brings Steve Hillage to my mind. We can enjoy pleasant work on the fretless bass, twanging acoustic guitar and an accellaration with flashy Moog synthesizer runs and again strong hints of early Eloy. The third and final part begins with beautiful spacey keyboard layers, then many shifting moods that contain very tasteful work on guitar and keyboards (including a sensational Moog solo).

I don't consider Nemrud their progrock as very original but these musicians generate a lot of progrock pleasure. And as a huge fan of early Eloy I am very pleased that Nemrud has incorporated this German progrock legend in their melodic sound. Finally I hope Nemrud will inspire more musicans in Turkey to make progressive rock, their debut was a good start and embraced by many progheads.

My rating: 3,5 star.

 Nemrud by NEMRUD album cover Studio Album, 2016
4.04 | 244 ratings

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Nemrud
Nemrud Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by Warthur
Prog Reviewer

4 stars 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).

 Nemrud by NEMRUD album cover Studio Album, 2016
4.04 | 244 ratings

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Nemrud
Nemrud Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by Wasabian

5 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.

 Nemrud by NEMRUD album cover Studio Album, 2016
4.04 | 244 ratings

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Nemrud
Nemrud Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by The Jester

3 stars 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 by NEMRUD album cover Studio Album, 2016
4.04 | 244 ratings

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Nemrud
Nemrud Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by antonyus

5 stars 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.

 Nemrud by NEMRUD album cover Studio Album, 2016
4.04 | 244 ratings

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Nemrud
Nemrud Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by Cae388

5 stars 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.

 Nemrud by NEMRUD album cover Studio Album, 2016
4.04 | 244 ratings

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Nemrud
Nemrud Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by vega

5 stars 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.
 Ritual by NEMRUD album cover Studio Album, 2013
4.13 | 413 ratings

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Ritual
Nemrud Psychedelic/Space Rock

Review by jackson1066

4 stars While I generally agree with the other enthusiastic reviews of this album, I just wanted to add some comments on the sound quality. There is a noticeable amount of hiss, particularly between songs, and the bass drums are cranked way up high. On my car stereo, I have the bass and treble turned up all the way because that's the way I like it. But when I play this CD, the bass of the drums overload my speakers, causing them to distort wildly. I have to push a bunch of buttons and go through a couple of menus in order to adjust the bass so I can hear this one CD. (Remember when you could adjust the bass by just turning a knob?) Anyway, the atmosphere on this album is brilliant, and it makes up for any other perceived shortcomings, in my opinion. But I am surprised no one has commented on the somewhat primitive sound quality. Oh, and the break between the last two songs is clumsy, like someone inserted a track separator in the wrong spot, and it turned into a gap of silence in an awkward place. I am going to seek out the vinyl, because I think it may sound better.
Thanks to rivertree for the artist addition. and to Quinino for the last updates

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