Over the past couple of years of this site’s 15 year history, I’ve managed to spill copious amounts of virtual ink covering Antananarivo, Madagascar-based JOVM mainstays LohArano. Since their formation, the Malagasy metal outfit  — Mahalia Ravoajanahary (vocals, guitar), Michael Raveloson (bass, vocals) and Natiana Randrianasoloson (drums, vocals) — have received attention both nationally and internationally for a unique, boundary pushing sound that features elements of popular and beloved Malagasy musical styles like Tsapiky  and Salegy with heavy metal. 

The Madagascar-based outfit’s sound and approach represents a bold generation of Malagasy youth that still honors, reveres and respects the traditions and practices of their culture and elders, while also being deeply inspired by contemporary, Western genres and styles. 

The JOVM mainstays newest EP YMAIMA is slated for a June 20, 2025 release. And as the band explains, the EP’s material is “a mirror. It’s a finger pointed at a truth we’d rather keep quiet. The EP takes an unvarnished and unflinchingly honest look at the brutal reality of their home land, “which bleeds between muffled cries and complicit silence,” they say.

YMAIMA‘s latest single “Mpaka Taova (Organ Dealers)” may arguably be the most abrasive, Suicidal Tendencies-meets-Body Count-like tracks that the JOVM mainstays have released to date while retaining the accessible, mosh pit friendliness that they’ve long been known for. The song as the band explains talks about organ dealers who kidnap children. Frequently, these child victims are later found mutated — or never found at all. The song serves as a forceful refusal to forget these victims and cries out for justice for them.

Fittingly, the accompanying video directed by Tsiory Andrianamanana is one of the bloodiest, goriest videos they’ve released to date, further evoking the sense of horror at the core of the song.