Soundbound- Indian Metal Showcase at the Blue Frog!

The folks from Unconvention and Global Groove came together to organise workshops and talks involving both foreign delegates and local musicians from the Indian indie/metal scene, and closed the three-day event with a gig at Blue Frog to ‘showcase’ Indian Metal. So, who’s better than the current Metal stalwarts – Infernal Wrath, Bhayanak Maut, Scribe and Demonic Resurrection to be churning out the riffs, growls and blast beats?

The bands not only hold a formidable status in the current national (and local) metal scene, but also had various achievements recently added to their repertoire – Infernal Wrath were still promoting their album ‘Inside of Me’, Bhayanak Maut were out to churn out the songs from their new EP ‘Metastasis’, Scribe had their video for ‘Dum hai to aage Aah!’ aired on VH1 and Demonic Resurrection aimed to warm-up before they headed out to Great Indian Rock in Delhi.

Infernal Wrath was the first band to play, and the last I had seen them was quite a while ago at Independence Rock last year. At Chitrakoot grounds, they hadn’t exactly played a tight set and were plagued by sound glitches, but that night at Blue Frog, they kept the mess-ups to a minimum and the brutality to the maximum. They opened with a semi-acoustic setup consisting for two acoustic guitars, keyboard effects and eastern-music influenced percussions. They progressed into ‘Truth’ which was very much the heavy, brutal death metal fans were waiting for. Lead vocalist Afaque Azad incited the crowd with “you have to destroy this place, this night.” The only thing they had to do after that, was pummel through songs like ‘Behold Ezekiel’ and ‘Destruction of the Third Temple’ to unleash pure metal havoc in the moshpits. I had originally considered Infernal Wrath too ‘extreme’ for me, but tonight their set crossed over into areas of Death Metal, Progressive Metal and even Sludge metal at times. On asked to perform an encore, they promptly plugged their instruments back in, and Afaque promptly got rid of his t-shirt saying “Oh you want one more? That too topless?” He descended in to the moshpit to ensure that Infernal Wrath left a ravaged Blue Frog in their wake.

Seen seated at a table was Rahul ‘Ragul’ Hariharan, the drummer of the next band which was to take the stage, Bhayanak Maut. Ragul was table-drumming in anticipation (and preparation) for his first gig at Blue Frog. This was BM’s first gig at the venue with their original line-up and without doubt, they wanted to make this one count. Opening sans the guttural twins Vinay and Sunneith, the band played an instrumental djent-like introduction waiting on their vocalists. As they stepped into sight, the crowd greeted them and ‘Dear <name>’ began, as were the moshpits re-opened. The two best things about BM’s was set was that they managed to play all three songs off ‘Metastasis’, including the set-closer ‘Chakna for Church’ and included re-worked versions of songs (or ‘new old songs’ as I like to call it) by now-defunct band Amidst the Chaos. Being an ATC fan myself, the new and improved versions of ‘Fight Night’ and ‘Ice Knives Nine Lives’ were an absolute treat, inducing whiplash very soon. Possibly given the longest set time, or perhaps just simply playing the most number of songs, they ploughed through set regulars like ‘Ranti Nasha’, ‘Ungentle’, ‘The Becoming’ and ‘MNS Messenger’, which was originally intended to bring their set to an end. The call for an encore seemed to carry on for every band playing tonight, interestingly.

Scribe was no exception to the encore requests by the crowd either. The best part of their encore was that it ensured the last two songs of their set were a return to original hardcore/mathcore roots of the band – ‘Buddy’ and ‘One Wing Pencil’ respectively. Being a ‘showcase night’, Scribe seemed to have wanted to perform their old school, original style of Indian Hardcore. But their set would rather be remembered for their usual camaraderie and frontman’s Vishwesh’s ability to perform the role of a top-notch metal vocalist and a stand up comedian throughout. Opening with the now-famous shout of “Bhaktawar!” was ‘Ate a Banana’. Vishwesh was wearing a ridiculously-funny elephant head gear. He noted how he read on Twitter that the British government was doing more for Indian indie Music than the Indian government, referring to the fact that the British Council was one of the main sponsors for Soundbound. Vishwesh unleashed Afaque into the crowd again and this truly up the destruction quotient that night. Guitarist Akshay too joined in the fun, putting his guitar aside during ‘Buddy’. Playing songs such as ‘1234 Dracula’, ‘I Love You, Pav Bhaji’, ‘M-Power’, ‘Vice Varsha vs. Street Archana’ (a special for all the ladies, as always) and ‘Mastibhari Muskaan’ (which was played as a tribute to how metal became ‘Indianised’).

So, bands didn’t really shorten their set list, but by the time Demonic Resurrection, the best-for-last band, was geared up and ready to rip, most of the crowd had in fact disappeared, including yours truly. So I caught up with guitarist (and tea fetishist) Daniel Rego to get the lowdown on DR’s set as the last band to perform that night.

With delegates from the world-over witnessing the best metal that India had to ‘showcase’, Demonic Resurrection was definitely not one they would want to miss out on, especially after all the global promotion and publicity they’ve been receiving after the release and tour in support of ‘The Return to Darkness’. Daniel told me that delegates were in fact present, although seated and a reasonably mid-sized crowd witnessed their set. They opened with ‘Spirits of the Mystic Mountains’ and managed to run through roughly forty minutes of their blend of black and death metal, with more melodic riffs/movements finding their way after Daniel’s entry into the band. Their set included ‘The Unrelenting Surge of Vengeance’, ‘Dreams of the Dead’ and ‘Bound by Blood, Fire and Stone’. Somewhere in the middle of their set, between songs, Metal Hammer (UK)’s editor Alexander Milas was invited on stage to speak on the Indian metal scene. Milas mentioned that he loved the scene and definitely wanted to help promote it. He then even proceeded to throwing out Metal Hammer t-shirts, magazines and other merchandise for the crowd. Seemed like a reward to all these who could still stay back till the showcase gig finally came to an end at about 1:30 am.

There were very little doubts about the turnout for such an event would be disappointing, in spite of the 200-rupees entry charge. Soundbound was organised with the main aim being to “discuss, debate and develop the indie and electronic music scene,” but remembered to acknowledge, or rather exhibit that its best talent lay within the metal fold of artists. Plenty of sore necks and backs (my very own included), this gig will have probably a see a replay of sorts at the coming Independence Rock XXV concert on December 5^th. Thus proving that metal is here to be flaunted (“like a chick… with boobs” as Vishwesh joked), preserved and promoted for all to bear witness.

Photo credit: Roycin D’Souza; http://facebook.com/RoycinD