Engulfed - Through the Eternal Damnation (2012)

   In the small Turkish extreme underground mainy brutal death and technical / progressive brutal death bands became dominant from the late '00s. This could partly serve as a reference to the main influences of the actual scene, and it could be also common in scenes which aren't the most developed. Like in case of most Eastern European countries, if the '90s old school wave was skipped or its local bands were able to reach only poor quality, therefore it couldn't become too influential. 

   However, there are always real gems to find even in similar cases, and one of them is Engulfed for instance. Their debut EP was absolutely stunning for a young band, an exceptional and all-round high quality release. The band's music had also remarkable brutal death influences, but very catchy old school themes assisting to increase their music's diversity. Occasionally, even doom influenced, heaviness gets some role, and the radical tempo switches also had quite great effect on the main view. In total "Through the Eternal Damnation" is a quite intense EP, and the  occasional slow downs highlighting even more it's overwhelming impression. The way how the mentioned diversity was composed into a whole, reminds to the biggest names of the genre. 

Ancestry - Battle ov the Fierce (2010)

   It was mentioned before that metal is kind of a short supplied thing if it's about Turkey. Therefore the appearence of Ancestry (or War Ancestry) was even more extraordinary, because they were an extreme metal band with female lineup. Nowadays it's way more common to find women in metal bands than before, but still they spark quite wide attention. Still there are two preferable features that are kind of difficult to find even nowadays: women in extreme metal and without sexual imagery and context (that's kind of a cheap trick that might sells, but only distracts from the music).

   Until today Ancestry was one of the very few (and unfortunately short lived) exceptions. Their music showed mixed influences that lied close to black/death, but basically it didn't follow any common directions of the style, and it's also difficult to find any references to it's classics as it used to be. The members probably had different influences and imaginations, and they were more into the actual bands of the scene on the side of classic mainstream bands, therefore their approach to black/death doesn't count as ordinary. At female bands it's a returning feature, that they play something quite different what influenced on them, and that ends up in a style that they are not really familiar with. Probably something similar happened to Ancestry, who just exposed the fresh rawness and unleashed the intense aggressive sound of a young band that tried to find it's own way. Their demo "Battle ov the Fierce" was a stunning one partly because of their genuine aspect, and partly because it sounds way more rude how it might be expected.

Burial Invocation - Rituals of the Grotesque (2010)

   If it's about Turkey, metal is definitely not amongst the first things that might come into somone's mind at first. Still, similar to other countries where the metal scene was kind of late formed, and therefore lacked any presence in the period when genres were developed in the main scene; for a start plenty of brutal death bands showed up in Turkey mainly with technical and progressive orientation.

   That's another reason why the appearence of Burial Invocation was extraordinary with their definitely old school death metal touch. The primitieve, dirty and rude tone of "Rituals of the Grotesque" catched the feeling of the old school style at it's best, and represents it's most enjoyable form. Their music shows the most similarities with the Finnish style of death by the combination of rough sound, deep growls and diverse, melodic leading themes. But the common heavy slow downs also suspecting some death/doom influences. Even if they might not had direct effect on their music, there is some analogy to find with bands like Ascended and Hooded Menace. Similarly impressing debuts are rare to hear not only in areas from where the appearence of this style if quite unexpected, but in general. But their timing was great, Burial Invocation came with the flow of the New Wave of Old School Death Metal as one of it's most promising bands.