NERVECELL
Preaching Venon (Spellbind Records)
Review by: Karen Sy
UAE BRINGS FORTH ONE OF THEIR BEST METAL ACTS TO DATE
Nervecell is composed of James Khazzai on vocals and bass, Barney Ribeiero on guitars, Ramil Mustafa on lead guitars and for this labum, the band got Australian drummer Dave Haley from Pyscroptic to do their drum tracks, which was engineered by Psycroptic guitar player Joey Haley. Last April, the band was one of our guest performers for Slam 11 and clearly, the fans loved themselves some Arabic death metal because the band got a great recepetion.
Living in the middle-east and being a death metal musician is a formula that will come out with epic proportions. Many American death metal bands have been using middle-eastern and Egyptian influences on their music for decades so one can only expect the most out of this world experience from a band like Nervecell.
Their cultural background however is not very prominent in their song-writing in debut album Preaching Venom and personally, I think it worked great. The band already has an edge going for them as one of the few death metal bands from the UAE and dipping themselves too much in the middle-eastern sauce is already starting the obvious. Instead the boys also utilized their influences from the West like Deicide, Cannibal Corpse and Behemoth.
Preaching Venom is masterful effort from Nervecell since it provides the perfect balance of Western and Middle-Eastern influences. The band clearly wants to create a mark in the death metal scene and gain the attention of Floridian death metal enthusiasts without turning their backs from cultural background.
