In Morocco’s Grand Casablanca area, Tagrest build their black metal around place and memory. You hear the Atlas Mountains in the background. You hear the Atlantic coast too. You hear Tamazight in the name. Their 2025 run moves in a few directions at once: the mostly acoustic, neo-folk pull of Epitome II – Sacred Tombs & Dynasties of Sand (February 2025), the split Adrar 01 – Defying Death (August 2025), and the live document At The Silence of a Thousand Graves – Live at l’Boulevard MMXXIII (November 2025).
“We started [by playing some] True Norwegian Black Metal songs, but we eventually found ourselves driven by an appreciation for our culture.”
Tagrest started in a rehearsal room, playing other people’s songs, until the band felt a pull they couldn’t ignore. Abyssal, the band’s vocalist and bassist, tells AFRICA.ROCKS it clicked when the music stopped being imitation and turned into something personal: “We actually started the band after rehearsing a few times on True Norwegian Black Metal songs, but we eventually found ourselves driven by an appreciation for our culture. At that moment we merged the two worlds, history and black metal, to create Tagrest.”
“We’re grateful and proud of how we evolved and stayed true to our values.”
From there, he says the band found its own direction without trying to play a role. “The band took shape by itself. We felt an aura and a natural artistic direction. We didn’t pretend to be anything. We tried, as much as possible, to be ourselves, uncorrupted along the way.” The aesthetics grew around what he already carried with him: “The vibes evolved around my interests: history, philosophy, and literature.” Then the line-up shift changed the colour again. “After Artwood rejoined, Tagrest took a spiritual and tribal side as well. We’re grateful and proud of how we evolved and stayed true to our values.”
They call it Atlantean Black Metal, and Abyssal isn’t using that word to sound mysterious. He means geography. He tells AFRICA.ROCKS the name comes from what Morocco is, and where Tagrest are standing: “When we say Atlantean, we refer to the Atlas Mountains and the Atlantic coast that borders Morocco to the west. We try to include Moroccan rhythms and an instrument called the bendir (traditional Moroccan frame drum with snares) in our music, plus the use of qraqeb (large metal castanets) and Gnawa (Moroccan spiritual music) influence in our latest EP, which are a significant part of our local folkloric musical heritage.”
He sees it as black metal’s core, not an extra layer. “For us, black metal always comes from pride in a land, from the cold sound of Norway to the warm, mythical sound of Hellenic black metal that reflects Greek myths and history. That’s our vision.’”
“Tagrest was chosen to unite our Tamazight language with the cold essence of black metal.”
The band name makes that intent even clearer. Tagrest means “winter” in Tamazight, and Abyssal chose it to lock language to the feeling he associates with black metal, and to the reality of Amazigh life in the mountains: “The name Tagrest was chosen to unite our Tamazight language with the cold essence of black metal, since black metal is known to be a cold and harsh genre. Winter embodies both: the severity of black metal and the nature of the season that mirrors the struggle and resilience of Amazigh communities in the Atlas Mountains. For us, Tagrest is more than a season. It’s a symbol of endurance, solidarity, and survival, far removed from the comfort of city life. All these elements are present in our lyrics and imagery.”
That writing leans hard into Moroccan and Amazigh history, across long stretches of time. Abyssal says they move through eras rather than picking one convenient chapter: “We cover all the eras, from the Mauritanian old Amazigh kingdom, passing through the Phoenician-influenced era to the Roman, and then to the Amazigh revolution against the Arab invaders.”
They also zoom in on specific figures and places: “Our first single was the story of an Amazigh leader called Maysara, who led his army to stop the Arabic usurpation, and the story of Anfa, or Casablanca, through ages in our album To Bask In Heroic Tales Of Yore. We try, as much as possible, to find many different sources of the same historical event, then compare them with common sense and logic before writing the lyrics.” Myth stays present too, but he treats it as something that belongs to the same inner world, especially in black metal. “Myths are metaphysical and rarely mentioned, just to emphasise the ancestral cults of the Amazigh people.”
And he doesn’t want a clean separation between history and myth, because he thinks that kills the atmosphere. “There’s no line for us, really. Both are intertwined. When we mention the Vikings, we think about Odin and Thor, so when we mention the Amazigh people, we should recall Anzar, Tanit, and Gurzil. If we draw a line, the mystery is lost, and black metal loves mystery”, he laughs.
That same mindset is all over Epitome II – Sacred Tombs & Dynasties of Sand. Abyssal lays it out like a sequence, where each track carries a piece of the title: “The answer is in the title itself. The first part, the maxi single ‘Woodwalkers II’, reflects the forlorn state and struggle of the Amazigh people. If you look at the cover, you’ll notice the cromlech of Mzora, an ancient place of worship and cult that symbolises the sacred tombs.”
Then comes the desert and the dynasty. “‘Al Mansur’ is about the journey of the Saadian sultan who made the Cherifian Empire prosperous and great, and whose dynasty comes from the gates of the Moroccan desert, a dynasty of sand.” The closing track turns inward again. He describes it as “the return to our origins and roots with the self-titled last song.”
For Abyssal, the thread is history, cinema and literature: “The songs were greatly inspired by one of our biggest heritages in cinema, Sydney Pollack (‘Jeremiah Johnson’), and the deeply spiritual and stunning works of the Tunisian Nacer Khemir and the late Moroccan Ahmed Bouanani.” He says their discovery of Bouanani became part of the band’s visual identity, then ended up inside the EP itself. “It led to our first shirt design, and his deep touch found its way into the closing track of Epitome II in the form of samples. I believe he would have loved what we did. Salute beyond the grave.”
He also talks about medieval storytelling, and the way it appears inside “Al Mansur”. “In ‘Al Mansur’, ‘Al Barah’ tries to inform the sultan about a rebellion in local medieval Darija at the gates of the palace.” Then he maps the EP’s movement in plain, vivid terms. He mentions Dante’s “Hell, Purgatory, Heaven,” and offers Tagrest’s version. “For us it was: mountains where the Woodwalkers dwell, sandy lands of the southeast, the origins of the Sultan, then winter, our heaven, and the return to what we are.”
Adrar Mazmorra is the collective and label behind Tagrest’s releases. It’s also the place where a lot of the work happens. Tagrest’s drummer, Artwood, runs it, and Abyssal describes it as “beyond a label”, a base in nature where musicians can record, rehearse, meet, and build ideas together: “Artwood is the main man behind Adrar Mazmorra. It’s beyond a label. It’s a collective of underground musicians and a place to record, rehearse, or have a council in the middle of nature, far from the limits of mundanity.”
He calls it a base for Tagrest. “The Mazmorra is a safe place for us. It’s where we dwell, mix and master, compose, and forge ideas close to nature, trees, swamps, and boglands.” Even the release plan is part of the scene-building. “Every 26th of every month, a solo project or a band releases music under Adrar, organised on Bandcamp and ready to be heard.”
“We have African metal bands at the same level as some European bands.”
When the talk shifts to Africa as a whole, Abyssal doesn’t soften his point. He wants African bands valued at home, and he wants the people booking shows to do better: “Through festivals, shared platforms like yours, and promoters who actually know their job. In Africa we still have that prestigious image of European metal, which is fine, but we give opportunities to bands who already have thousands of doors open in their continent, just to bring them here. We have African metal bands at the same level as some European bands I saw lately, or even better, but they don’t get booked.”
He also speaks plainly about what it takes to play black metal where it isn’t conventional. “It’s more challenging to do black metal in African countries. It’s not something conventional here, and we don’t care either. If we want to create something, we do it. We don’t think too much about how international listeners or local listeners will react. This kind of music is what we actually are. We grew up like outcasts in our society, but we didn’t care that much. We signed the pact immediately. We didn’t hesitate.”
He ends on something that reads like a warning and a blessing at once, and it fits Tagrest perfectly: “What we have now is a modern world full of hypocrisy, biased codes, and a flagrant lack of identity. Culture is dying for the benefit of a worldwide consumerist society, without soul, without values. Keep standing amid a world of ruins, and may the old ways live forever.”
Stream Tagrest’s entire discography on Bandcamp.
