The band gathers in a small carpentry shop on the outskirts of Iran's capital, with sawdust still in the air but the buzzing of the jigsaws now exchanged for the soft feedback of an amplifier.
A drummer strikes his snare four times and Hakim Ebrahimi opens with the first dreamy notes of "Afghanistan," the sound of their Metallica-inspired rock ballad filling the air. The four rockers that make up the band, known as Arikayn, are Afghan refugees, and their struggles mirror those of millions of other Afghans who have fled to Iran during decades of war.
