siLLy puPPy Tajikistan is one of those nations that everyone knows exists, has seen on the map and perhaps even aware of the fact that it’s a very mountainous nation next to Afghanistan and one of the former conquered lands that was annexed to the Soviet Union, but that’s probably about as far as it goes if even that! It’s hard to believe that people actually live in these totally off the radar areas of the planet but they do and they listen to music including metal! While not exactly a prolific nation in the world of popular music including metal, there have been a scant few bands that have been more inspired by the sounds from afar rather than whatever they listen to in places like this.

RED PLANET is one of the few bands from this nation coming from the capital city of Dushanbe and was formed in 2010 by Maryam Hakimova - bass guitar, Umeda Fazylova - lead guitar and Khursheda Fazylova - drums. This was an all girl band at this point and played covers mostly by Alice Cooper, Paolo Nutini, Three Days Grace and others but this lineup only last until 2011 when the next phase of RED PLANET dawned with the arrival of guitarist Rustam Mirzoakhmedov who steered the band’s soon more into the world of heavy metal and focused on a more robust guitar sound that took the classic traditional sounds of heavy metal riffing and added local oriental flavors.

Although the band is still officially active, RED PLANET has only released this one EP titled HOMEWORLD which came out in 2013 and only clocks in over the 17 minute mark. The lineup for this phase of the band was Umeda Fasilova / Guitars (lead), Vocals, Kursheda Fasilova / Drums, Olim Karimov / Guitars, Rustam Mirzoakhmedov / Guitars and Yuri Stolov / Bass. The EP has four tracks that are all over the place with tracks like “Anima” showcasing instrumental precision in a melodic procession of guitar arpeggios and technical workouts while “Doomsday” takes on elements of thrash metal most notably from Metallica as the track opens up with those famous slow burners that turn into sizzling guitar led frenzies however despite the presence of metal, once the vocals enter the scene my enthusiasm goes way down as the lead vocals are quite weak.

While this trend continues on the title track with strong guitar riffs and a nice bass accompaniment, the vocals which are clean sound like a very feminized Ozzy Osbourne from the early Black Sabbath days. While there are a few death metal secondary vocals here and there, the entire band sound changes on the final “Rift In The Lute” which employs Metallica’s guitar riffing style from early albums like “Ride The Lightning” but accompanied by death metal growls. This is by far the best track on the album but even so very uninspiring as it’s just a Metallica song with death metal growls! Well performed but forgettable. And that’s the moral of this story: forgettable. My first visit to metal from Tajikistan hasn’t been the silk road journey i had expected but there are other metal bands from this region from Central Asia such as the Kazakh black metal act Darkestrah which is excellent, so i will surely not write off this nation quite yet.