OKAY, BUT IT’S JANAZA, JACKASS

A reader whose name I won’t publish in order to spare him some embarrassment e-mailed me this morning with the subject line “Jazara,” a link to this stream on The Gauntlet, and a demand that I “Tell people this exists.” Kinda rude, but whatever. The band is called Janaza, not “Jazara,” so I have to assume the reader is either a small child or a mental midget, because how could anyone be so forcefully passionate about a band whose name they don’t even know? (And don’t say “It could be a typo,” either. The letter “n” and the letter “r” are nowhere near one another on the keyboard.) Either way, no reason to take his blunt tone personally.

ANYWAY, Janaza is, according to the aforementioned Gauntlet, an “anti-Islamic black metal band fronted by a female in Iraq,” known only as “Anahita.” Anahita has to keep her identity a secret, of course, because if found out, her life would be in serious danger. That’s certainly unique to metal (as The Gauntlet points out, even the dudes in Acrassicauda, who certainly overcame their own very intense struggle, at least had the support of one another, whereas Anahita seems to be flying solo), and it makes me wish I could understand the lyrics. It also makes me wish I liked the music, but, hey, you can’t win ’em all.

But you should check out the stream here and see what you think… actually, I’ll be curious to see what kind of reaction this gets. I’ll also be keeping my fingers crossed that Anahita doesn’t turn out to be a forty-year old American man from Georgia, but that’s another issue altogether.

-AR