In a world of ever-shortening attention spans, where artists edit down songs to ‘Spotify’ friendly edits little more than two minutes of choruses, the Egyptian/German progressive rock band Naheli are one of the few still keeping the album format alive and kicking.
They’ve even gone one better than the traditional album with the release of their ultra-creative double experiment ‘Chemistry & Reevaluation’ released on October 8.
‘We started as a progressive rock band and now we developed into a pop-ish direction. But we still have songs that have a very progressive vibe and I was wondering, how to combine both sides,’ said lead-singer and writer Lina.
The answer was to create a double-album that neatly spans both sides of Nehali’s musical heritage.
‘Chemistry’ has a more rounded pop sound and represents feelings and emotions. ‘Reevaluation’ is about thoughts and has a more progressive sound,” according to Lina.
As if that wasn’t enough, the two albums are cleverly bridged by the track ‘Morning’.
‘At first, I was skeptical,’ says Lina, ‘but I realized that both sides of the album represent two sides of the same coin and some songs complement each other and have small parts of the other side. Like for example ‘Symbiotic’ – the main single of the album. It talks about feeling co-dependent to your inner demons, but at the same time, it is a thought process, the question of how or whether to get out of this.’
The result is an emotive, euphoric and thought-provoking album that neatly combines Middle Eastern accents with a European feel.
Naheli is made up of Egyptian singe Lina on vocals and piano and German musician Till on drums and electronics. Previously called Kassieopeia, they released an album and live EP in 2015 and 2018.
Since reforming as Naheli, they have released several singles including 2019’s Empire.
Musically, they cover a wide range of influences including European and Egyptian pop, soul and progressive pop.
Lina was born in Germany to Egyptian parents and spends most summers in Cairo where she studied medicine before making her career in music.
Naheli plans to play several live stream shows and events in November to support their latest album.
