The Dark Reign

The Dark Reign (previously titled The Eleventh Hour) is Bahraini thrash metal band Motör Militia's unreleased second album.

History

The concept for The Dark Reign came about when Motör Militia had reunited after a year long hiatus to concentrate on their college studies abroad; drummer Abdulla Muijrers and bassist/vocalist Mahmood Abdul Ghaffar returned to Bahrain in the summer of 2005 to start jamming again with guitarist Yousef Hatlani, who was still completing high school at the time.

As it turned out, Muijrers and Mahmood had written new material with the intention of recording and releasing another album. The two of them had communicated via email with Yousef over the school year, and a proposed album title was "The Eleventh Hour". Following their arrival to Bahrain, after the pictured cover art had been designed, it was decided that the album would be renamed to "The Dark Reign".

Numerous songs were written and rehearsed, and portrayed more of an influence from the American metalcore scene at the time than from their traditional thrash metal sound. Moreover, because the band's second guitarist, Salem Sulaibikh, was studying abroad in Australia over the summer, the three piece had to recruit a local guitar player named Yousif Mufeez, who played with local hard rock band Bruttal, as a sessionist during the rehearsals to complete the lineup for future live performances.

Upon setting out to record the material, complications arose in finding a proper studio to record the songs in, as well as an engineer to help mix the album. As a last resort, the band chose to record the songs on a friend's home computer setup, with another friend of the band, who was the guitar player for local progressive rock group Avatar, mixing the album.

In reality, only a couple of guitar tracks from the songs planned were recorded; the band quickly became disappointed with the recording quality and conditions of the project. As such, the songs were saved to be recorded at a later date - when they would have sufficient time to plan for a more efficient way of completing the album.

As the summer drew to a close, Muijrers and Mahmood left Bahrain once again to continue their college studies - leaving the project behind. It remains unreleased.

Proposed track listing
#"Cloaked in Darkness"
#"Truth Beyond the Wall"
#"American Dream"
#"Falter"
#"Blind"
#"Smothered"
#"Gates of Tylos"
#"March of the Saracens"
#"Cries of the Innocent"
#"From Damnation"
#"Never Know"
#"Dawn of the Dead"

Lineup
* Mahmood Abdul Ghaffar - Vocals, Bass
* Yousef Hatlani - Guitars
* Yousif Mufeez - Session Guitarist
* Abdulla Muijrers - Drums

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