Here’s the idea: every week I’m picking five tracks from Africa that I couldn’t stop playing. They can be brand new, they can be 15 years old, they can be anything in between. This isn’t a chart, it isn’t a ranking, and it isn’t me pretending to be objective. It’s one person’s taste, quirks included, writing down the five African songs that owned the week.
There’s no fixed order either. I’m writing them the way they came back to me.
You’ll find all five in the official AFRICA.ROCKS Spotify playlist. Save it to your favourites, because I keep it updated constantly.
Arkan “Broken Existences”
(Lila H / Independent, 2020)
This Algerian collective, based in the French capital, first caught my attention back in 2011 with Salam, their second full-length album, released by the (also French) label Season of Mist. The track I’m bringing you today – and the one that took over a good part of my week in terms of what I kept reaching for – is called “Broken Existences”. It comes from the Arkan‘s fifth and most recent record, Lila H, which they released independently in 2020.
Sonically, you’ll find melodic death metal packed with Middle Eastern influences, slowly edging towards prog. It’s split between two vocal approaches (one harsh, one more melodic), with electric guitars backed up by oud and mandola. Lyrically, it has the experience of growing up during Algeria’s civil war as its backdrop. If you’re into this kind of meeting point between two worlds, you’ll have more than enough reason to dig in and explore Arkan’s discography – especially considering they also had a period with a female voice, which added a different kind of character to the project.
SAKADOYA “Sacred Reverie”
(The Will / Independent, 2026)
I’d planned to write about “Burn Bright My Dear”, the 2025 single from this Moroccan band, who hadn’t shown any sign of new releases since their 2009 debut full-length, Back to the Age of Slaves. But while staying in touch with the band, they pointed me towards “Sacred Reverie” instead. Like the previous single, it’s a glimpse of what’s coming on the new album, whose title is already out there: The Will.
Working from a melodic death/thrash angle, the long-running Sakadoya use this track as the opener for their first record in 17 years. It looks back to a time when the Earth felt whole, untouched, and fully its own. Old forests carry their quiet voices through the night. Waterfalls hit hard under moonlit skies. Mountains stand still. Oceans rise and fall like breath. Everything living moves as part of the same calm order.
At its core, the song sits with nature as it once was: wide, sacred, and held in balance. Rivers running free. Forests growing without fear. Life following rhythms you don’t see, under skies that never seem to end. Then, inside that reverie, something starts to lean out of place.
But nature can be unforgiving. It takes back what’s hers in destructive ways. That’s the core of this single. The raw force of creation, and how small a human being should feel in the face of the universe around them.
Bombino “Tamiditine”
(Nomad / Nonesuch & WEA International, 2013)
With more than 7 million plays on Spotify, “Tamiditine” closes Bombino’s 2013 album Nomad. The Tuareg guitarist from Niger blends desert blues with Saharan rock and turns it into a kind of trance. It makes me shut my eyes and picture myself on a long, empty road, moving at the same steady pace our planet keeps as it circles the sun.
We should all spend time with “Tamiditine” and think about the state of things. Even if the message of the lyrics, sung in Tamasheq, doesn’t land in our heads, the sound and the tone of his voice carry something that feels universal. It speaks about love, about “before”, about whatever we carry as soul, and about not really knowing what to do with those feelings. In the end, it’s a freeing song. It gets under your skin, and it leaves you a little quieter, like something inside you has shifted into place.
Lelahell “Al Intissar”
(Al Insane… The (Re)birth of Abderrahmane /
Horror Pain Gore Death Productions, 2014)
Sometimes we need a bit of aggression in our lives. Not as pure destruction, but as a way to feel, at full volume, the anger and the hate that chew through us every day, and to let it out in a healthy way. That’s why Algeria’s Lelahell exist, I think: to remind us that metal is here so someone can scream for us when we can’t.
“Al Intissar”, the opening track of Al Insane… The (Re)birth of Abderrahmane, does exactly that. The drums hit in a frenzy. The guitars lock in behind them, adding weight and groove, with riffs coloured by an Eastern palette. And Redouane Aouameur’s unforgiving voice makes it easy to understand why he’s seen as one of the key artists who helped put Algeria on the map of the underground metal circuit.
Myrath “Soul of my Soul”
(Wilderness of Mirrors / earMUSIC, 2026)
“Soul of My Soul” landed between Flesh Creep’s “King of the Hill” and the Nordic legends Mayhem’s “Realm of Endless Misery” in a Metal Hammer readers’ poll for the best songs of last week. With this single, Myrath aren’t exactly my favourite version of themselves – I’m still fully sold on what they did on Tales of the Sands back in 2011 – but the truth is this track has been stuck in my head.
Look… you can try to resist anything sweeter and more romantic, but when it’s done well, and when it has Myrath’s touch, it’s hard to deny it. It’s a genuinely beautiful piece, with arrangements that feel carefully built and properly finished. Rahma Ben Aïssa’s dance performance in the video also deserves a mention. It adds another layer of expression that fits the song perfectly.
Myrath are still the kings of metal in Tunisia, and arguably in North Africa as a whole. And the best part is that, as the years go by, they still know how to reshape what they do, bring in new elements, and keep their reign alive – and worth spending time with.
