Alexandrian veterans Massar Egbari (مسار إجباري) are one of the longest lasting underground bands, not only in the Egyptian but also the Middle Eastern scene.
Actively involved for the past 10 years between representing Egypt in numerous live festivals along with two widely successful studio albums, it is no surprise they are often dubbed as the “Egyptian Dire Straits”.
Following a successful UK summer tour and a ten years anniversary concert series back in their home country, the “Microphone” stars recently released a new video for their latest single titled “Cheerophobia” (شيروفوبيا); a term invented by lyricist Ahmed El Rawy to express the phobia of being cheerful.
Matching the lyrical mood, the video sees a calm girl staring at a mirror before quickly resembling several contradicting emotions through happiness, sadness, confusion, anger, depression and everything in between.
While the song is a bit of a departure from Massar’s famous rock style into more modern pop, evidently coming across in the cow-bell drenched intro to midway claps, it’s refreshing to see bands reinventing their musical style to plausibly capitalize on budding audience.
And with more than 320,000 views in 2 weeks, it is no doubt “Cheerophobia” is already a hit.
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