Ameretat – Self-Titled

Ameretat are a duet of members from the Iranian diaspora who, about two months ago, released their debut full-length album. Their self-titled record, named after a Zoroastrian deity translated as “immortality”, is a 23-minute hardcore epic enriched with generous doses of traditional and contemporary Iranian folk music. Lyrically, Ameretat draw on Iranian literature and confront themes of social inequality, systemic racism, war, colonialism, love, and despair. To do so, the duo employ Persian, Avestan, Lori, Kurdish, and English linguistic elements, all presented alongside a stunning album cover.

Musically, Ameretat expand their hardcore foundation with androgynous dual vocals, d-beat/crust, drone/noise, and metallic elements. Their eccentric world stretches, within the punk domain, from Rudimentary Peni to Dystopia. Across the album’s eight tracks, sonic parallels to the warlike assault of acts such as Rat Cage, Jalang, or Lasso, as well as frequent metallic hardcore breakdowns, appear throughout. Ameretat manage, impressively, to weave their numerous influences into a sound that, despite its monolithic momentum, carries imagination, emotional breadth, and enough musical ideas to draw you back in.

The opening “Ghazal-e-ātish / Posht-e-pardeh (Ode To Fire / Behind The Veil)” uses a traditional rhythm to great effect, its bass-driven bridge launching into an almost powerviolence-level outburst. Much like the debut LP of their ideologically aligned label-mates Traidora, this is a record unafraid to expose itself to the void in order to communicate its message. The way the folk passages and instruments intertwine with the wall of guitars on the stomping “Koshtan-e ye Sag-e-āb (The Killing of a Sacred Water Dog)” feels so organic that it avoids becoming an “exotic” spectacle for outside onlookers.

Even when giving in to atavistic hardcore street-fighting on the frenetic “Tanhayee, Khodsouzi (Isolation, Self-Immolation)”, Ameretat make full use of the atmospheric dynamics introduced by their hybrid sound. On “Mohnate Digarān (The Hardship of Others)”, they exploit the rhythmic backbone of the d-beat to balance sonically between multiple worlds, with the alternating vocals closely following the wandering guitar scales. Through allegory, Ameretat carry their mythological and traditional wanderings into a contemporary dark urban landscape, flattening all hierarchies in the process.

The result may resemble a bombed-out wasteland, yet the passion and momentum of the compositions retain the salvific stubbornness that defines this music. Ameretat sound vital because they roam through rubble and ruins without losing their spark or slipping into nihilistic gloom. Near the album’s end, during “Pir-e Bid-e Bikas (Shrine of the Orphaned Willow)”, a breathtaking guitar lead slices through a dusty atmosphere with its Eastern scales, a moment that embeds itself in your memory. A little earlier, “Deyr-e-kharāb (Broken Monastery / Ruined World)” reveals remarkably complex layering, confirming that every second of this album stems from deep inspiration and, more importantly, substantial compositional vision and technical skill. Its folk finale is a thrilling journey to a pre-capitalist past.

Ameretat have released one of the standout DIY hardcore albums of the year. By offering a window into a world rarely filtered through our West-centric gaze, and exploiting to the fullest the sonic and political core values of raw, politicized hardcore and crust, they find solace in a frenzied, shamanic, liberating, multi-layered, and fluid dance.

Inside the record sleeve, the following phrase is inscribed, “Behind the veil, a discourse goes on about me and you. When the veil disappears, there remains neither you nor me.” History is shaped by narratives that outlive individuals. The stories that remain matter because of their teachings and emotional imprints. I hope that, for some part of the DIY underground’s collective imagination, Ameretat’s modest triumph resonates with the primordial, righteous anger that fuels it, an anger and plea for freedom that, through lived experience and suffering, runs through every inch of struggle contained within these brief yet striking punk eruptions.

Find a Greek version of this review here.