Midbar – the first Jewish metal album

27 July, 2012 3:54 pm 2 Comments

I’ve been blogging about Jews and metal for a few years and at various points, people have mentioned to me a US Jewish metal band from the 1990s called Midbar. I’ve never been able to find much info about them – until now. Stefan Kirschner got in touch and sent me a scan of the (self-released, eponymously) CD cover from 1998. It was the only thing they ever released apparently.

Stefan also sent me a rip of the CD. Given that the band are no longer a going concern I’ve taken the liberty of posting the MP3s below. I’ve had a listen and it’s not bad. I’m guessing the band are baal teshuvah as it sounds like other rock acts I’ve heard with the background. It doesn’t do anything very interesting with metal, but the covers of Jewish standards are quite fun. In 1998 the novelty value alone would have blown my mind.