page_title: Pakistani rock
section_title: Heavy metal
hierarchical_section_title: Pakistani rock / Heavy metal
caption_attribution_description: English: Epatkarachi.
context_page_description: Pakistani rock is a variety of rock music that is largely produced in Pakistan. Pakistani rock incorporates elements of both British–American rock and Pakistani classical music.
  Since the 1980s, Pakistani rock has had its own distinctive elements, such as a homegrown class of sounds and melodies, spanning progressive rock, hard rock, and heavy metal, initially influencing the development of heavy metal music in the late 1990s. Pakistani rock is almost entirely sung in Urdu, however many bands have issued songs in Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi and English languages.
context_section_description: After the successful emergence of Vital Signs in the 1980s and Junoon in the 1990s, the heavy metal music genre began to rise after the 1997 general elections. The roots of Pakistani heavy metal music can be traced back to the new wave of British heavy metal when it was transferred in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the 1980s, the bands Final Cut and Barbarians are considered the earliest Pakistani heavy metal bands. Although they were short-lived, they influenced many other musicians. Guitarist Salman Ahmad gained fame for his unique style of playing Sufi-style and neoclassical musics in heavy metal form.
  The second wave of heavy metal artists, including bands such as Dhun, which was Fawad Baloch's more conventional metal project, Blackhour, Ehl-e-Rock, Inferner, and Black Warrant, which still continues to promote the genre. The most notable and productive work on heavy metal genre was bestowed and carried out by Mizraab, whose Panchi album was an ultimate success in this genre. Guitarist Faraz Anwar of Mizraab's solo instrumental work is widely noticed by the public and news channels dubbed Anwar as "Pakistan's master of progressive-metal rock." In recent studies and reports conducted by CNN, heavy metal is one of Pakistan's most popular genres of music, and country's radio FMs broadcast the music each week. Since 2004, the economic liberalization programmes of Prime minister Shaukat Aziz which helped open the new Pakistan TV and several music video channels, have triggered the underground heavy metal movements in cities such as Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.
  Although Mizraab, a band led by Faraz Anwar that is considered to be Pakistan's first progressive metal band, have also played a significant role in promoting the growth of metal music in Pakistan. Furthermore, bands such as Jehangir Aziz Hayat, Takatak, Messiah and Foreskin are examples of significant metal bands that have surfaced in the past five years.
caption: The heavy metal music act, Entity Paradigm, performing, 2009.
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