ON AUGUST 15, 2021, music in Afghanistan effectively became illegal. While no official decree had been passed, the return of Taliban rule after two decades of conflict precipitated mass panic. Instruments were buried or burned, advertisements featuring women were covered over and people attempted to evacuate en masse. All notions of progress were erased as the Taliban resumed control of Afghanistan after 20 years of conflict with the US, the central/south asian country itself having endured a four-decade cycle of war and occupation. Afghanistan’s metal scene hadn’t been active for some time, but the fact it existed at all was miraculous. “It was pretty punk,” offers Travis Beard, an Australian expat who settled in Afghanistan in 2001. “Punk not in the genre sense, but because it forced everybody to be very DIY.”
Assisted by expats like Travis who could source everything from equipment to rehearsal rooms and venues, a loose scene formed around