(written by Islander)
For reasons obvious to anyone with their eyes and ears open, the Middle East is the focus of great attention these days, the broad locus of a war whose boundaries seem to be continuously expanding with no clear end in sight (and a certain orange-toned deviant raving about the “honor” of killing people. The black metal band Mulla probably did not foresee this staggering conflict would be happening around the release of the video we’re now premiering, but it’s not as if the current conflagration hasn’t happened there before.
To be clear, Mulla is not a Middle Eastern band, despite some confusion about their location (which the band themselves had a hand in generating). This duo is located in Kazakhstan, their lyrics are in their native tongue, and they are not practicing Muslims.
Their goal, as they have explained, “is neither preaching nor criticizing, but rather creating a unique cultural hybrid, a simulacrum with its own powerful poetics.” “This is a conceptual journey through mythologized landscapes, where images of Islamic culture (calligraphy, philosophical motifs, linguistics) become the colors of a black metal painting.”
The video we’re presenting is for a song called “Keıde ólim osynda júredi” from Mulla’s latest album Jannan (released in December 2025).
The mesmerizing computer-generated video frames the music with visions of drifting sands and ruined temples, of slithering serpents and a desert encounter between a mysterious, beautiful woman and a wandering man whose thoughts seem increasingly desolate. Mulla’s performers stride the dunes as well; another female figure menacingly wields a scythe; a scroll unravels and perishes; the figures fall prostrate, and the sands begin to reclaim them, along with everything else.
The music is as mysterious, as menacing, and as imposing as the video. It begins slowly, with an Arabian melody that seems to slowly writhe and wail, like the casting of an exotic spell. The band then carry that melody forward high above an enormous, stomping cadence and abrasive sandstorm chords. A voice screams in fanatically caustic tones, and the drums boom and crack.
The music continues to wail in frequencies both shrill and dismal. When the gargantuan rhythms briefly vanish (and hands touch in the video), the music becomes eerie and maybe even more perilous. When the percussion returns and rumbles like an avalanche, the lead guitar feverishly whirls and soars, again carrying an exotic melody but higher still, both glorious and tormented in its sorcerous and serpentine sound.
The band start shaking the earth again, and screams erupt as well. The music becomes enormous once more, near apocalyptic in its scale, abrading nerves and scorching ears, and closing with a fretwork spectacle.
MULLA is:
Shahram – vocal, guitars, bass
Shukri – guitars, samples
To date, the band has released five full-length albums and several singles. In 2025, the musicians re-recorded their second and third albums with a more professional sound, and their release is planned for 2026, including on Satanath Records, who arranged today’s premiere. For more info (and more music), visit the locations linked below.
https://mulla.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/mullablackmetal
https://www.facebook.com/mullablackmetal