Lebanese band Mashrou' Leila debuted its first track Friday in anticipation of the release of the new album "Ibn el Leil" (meaning Son of the Night) on VICE's Noisey .

[include id="12" title="FacebookEmbed"]

The boys from Mashrou Leila are out with ‘#Maghawir’, their first single from the new album (and my second favorite song on the album). It tells the story of a club shooting in Beirut, inspired by two different shootings that took place within the same week, both of which resulted in the deaths of extremely young victims, each of whom was celebrating their birthday.The lyrics are layered onto a badass dance beat and the song serves as a great jam to get down and dirty to but also as a powerful commentary of the tragic normalization of this kind of behavior and Lebanon's dirty politics -- a sobering criticism of how violence in the country is just one more thing to dance to, and one more manifestation of the country's ruling elite's tendency to protect criminals because of vested political interests which distracts from any accountability as well as social and political reform.

Posted by Ahmed Shihab-Eldin on Friday, October 23, 2015

The track, titled "Maghawir," tackles Lebanese gun laws in the wake of two Beirut incidents. This single is part of a newer and more mature direction the seasoned Lebanese indie band is taking in terms of sound. The group has made sure to stick to the same risqué themes it had tackled before like LGBTQ rights, race, religion, and modern Arabic identity.

The new track is framed to be a narration of "a possible version of a club shooting in Beirut," which draws from actual incidents, but also makes "to situate the events within a broader discourse on gender and the recruitment of Lebanese men into locallyrevered militarized masculinities, here said violence often becomes not only common, but rather part of a list of gendered provisions for the preservation of men’s honor."

Only a day since its release, Mashrou' Leila fans have already taken to Twitter to praise the band's new single:

Mashrou' Leila is set to release their new album on Nov. 28 at the Barbican Center, London.

Fresh with enthusiasm and excitement from their recent win at the Warsaw Film Festival, Lebanese filmmakers Tony El Khoury and Allen Seif met with StepFeed in Beirut to discuss their documentary short " Lebanon Wins the World Cup ."

Combining a universal passion for football with Lebanon's haunted civil war past, the film brings two former enemies together to watch a World Cup match by the team they share an equal passion for: Brazil. The unconventional narrative directed garnered "Best Documentary Short Film" at the Warsaw festival.

The documentary film was directed by El Khoury and Anthony Lappé, a New York-based filmmaker, and was collaboratively written by Bakhos Baalbaki, El Khoury, Lappé and Seif.

"I always wanted to do a piece, a kind of portrait of Lebanon, through the lens of the FIFA World Cup," explained El Khoury.

Elaborating on how the project came together, Seif, the film's music composer and a producer, said, "We started brainstorming and a few months before the World Cup we had this idea."

With the 2014 World Cup taking place in Brazil, the filmmakers saw the perfect opportunity.

All they needed to do was find two former Civil War fighters from opposite sides with a burning passion for the Brazilian team; two former fighters who were also willing to come together to watch a World Cup match together and open to the possibility of bonding with a man they would have once considered an enemy.

Of course, finding the right individuals was the first challenge.

"You need someone who fought the war at the same time, someone to talk, someone with a bit of character," Seif said.

Using their respective contacts, they were able to find two men, one who fought with the Christian militias and another who was part of the Communist forces. "It just happened that those two guys first, they had a strong connection to Brazilian football and they had the stories that really enriched our narrative," El Khoury said.

Still, the film was an experiment of sorts. The backstories of the two men provided a great narrative but in the end the project would come down to the moment when the former enemies would actually meet to share their mutual passion for Brazilian football during a match. Would the two men bond or would the old tensions arise?

Without spoiling the ending, suffice it to say the films moving narrative certainly wowed in Warsaw and is sure to impress as it goes on to compete at other international festivals. The filmmakers explained that while the story may be specifically about two men, the civil war and a mutual passion for football, there are universal elements that can tug on the heart of any viewer.

Furthermore, they have endeavored to show a different perspective on the Civil War, not to show that one side was right or wrong, but instead to present both men as individuals influenced by their personal and societal convictions.

"It's not like 'us and them', these are the people of this country," Seif said. "[It's] not like aliens came to Lebanon and they made the war and we had nothing to do with it."

"The main point with us is that nobody was right and nobody was wrong ... but unless you talk, you'll never solve anything in any country or any culture."

El Khoury stressed that they are not saying this film will somehow solve the conflict in Lebanon, but this small step for these two men signifies something, "Just to make a step and to meet someone who was your enemy or who is coming from the other side ... I think this is the beginning."