A venue that looks like it’s straight out of one of those
Portal albums, seven bands , and several genres on the menu – death/grind, slam
death, brutal death metal, technical death metal, blackened death and some arty
dark metal … the SUMMER DEATH-FEST gig was next to flawless . Dated 18th July,
2014 at the well-over-a-century-mark Capital Hall, Darjeeling, at the event of
IMPERIAL CULT releasing their “Rise Of Yalamber” (EP) was a pleasantly rabid
one, just the way metal-heads would want it to be . The fact that several
dropped by from the neighboring Kharsang ( a band included) and Siliguri showed
just how supportive and kind metal music lovers can be, like they always are .
Scheduled to start at noon, it was around one and a half-hour later that the
show actually started, though the patience and work in the days before to make
it happen were well rewarded .
First to hit the stage was JHAGRAA, with members
amalgamated from Gangtok, Darjeeling and Siliguri . The fact that they played
without a bassist did little to make the music they made degrade in any way,
which had death/grind written all over them by the way . Micro-ditties well
crafted to suit any-one with a grinding technical palette, the band put up a
blisteringly amazing performance . Though being the first band in the gig, they
were dripping with expertise none-the-less .
POST MORTEM FETAL EXTRUSION boarded the stage next, and
their variety of brutal slamming death metal was impressive enough, like having
a tourniquet tight up your throat . Adding to the merriness with fake blood
splattering, it only made their performance more twisted . The music was the
main thing to be focused upon of course, and it was good enough to be expected
from such a moniker – it certainly made me want to water the flowers, and
release pink balloons in the air- NOT ! This was some nastily hostile and mean
heads-down explosion to the senses to create what they wanted to convey – convulating
battery of riffage straight from the often visited morgue with tightness and
groove locked in safe within the frame-work of their music .
CHREMATOMANIA, again sharing members with JHAGRAA who hit
up with some brutal death metal, wouldn’t be wrong to say masqueraded well into
the technical fold too . Bludgeoning and torturous the music may have been, but
seemingly at home they were in it’s execution . The fact that they have played
very less live was surprisingly contrasted by the way they delivered their
brand of fury without effort into the
unsuspecting masses of flying dandruff, sweat and spit, who seemed to savor
every move, passage(s) and progression the music slithered into .
Well-structured riffs that were supported by a back-bone of equally
complementing rhythm section made them scorching with near-perfectness as they
delve deeper into what they can harness and offer back .
OBLITERATING VORTEX from Darjeeling took over from them . These guys have been playing gigs around their home,Nepal and Kolkatta as well, and it showed in the way the presented their craft of on the stage . The music was nicely un-predictable, so that guessing which bands they draw influences from was hard, which again pointed rather to the direction that they have a sound of their own by now . Fuming to the gills with screeching angst, they put up a set worth remembering . Brilliant display of time-signatures running hay-wire, schizophrenic solos leading to never-guessed musical territories, pounding drums blasting into oblivion left a grin of satisfaction on faces hungry for metal, metal and then, some more metal !
IMPERIAL CULT, the release of the afore-mentioned EP whose
event this was actually followed after that, and blackened death metal
interpreted in their own terms and parameters was what they spewed next .
Technical aspects textured with atmospherics transported the listener into another realm far-off into an ancient
hierarchy of a god-king as callous riffs of every color invoking almost all
aspects of the human psyche inter-wove themselves in a context of heaves and
trough of a spiral nebula of aural ferocity . As black metal comes a long way
from the apex of it’s origin, morphing into various definitions various hands
and minds give to it, Imperial Cult have done like-wise, as a unique
grave-stone with a prominently utter (for want of a better word) and
simplistically but very much their own brand of the genre, in a cemetery that
is black metal .
PURGATION from Kolkatta put up an impressive set too, the
numerous shows they’ve played in and the consequent expertise showing through
and through . The muddled murky death metal we grew up with that laughs at the
face of some of today’s overtly technologically pretentious to the point of not
being death metal at all death metal that still lurks to save the day is what
Purgation can also be called, and that’s fucking news man ! Lurching back and
forth into sprawling, crawling, then sprinting, a subtle groove that could be
perceived by the most fine ears here and there, and the real funereal vibe that
good old death metal’s about, they poured down all those blessings upon our
unholy heads as a “death on eight legs” entity …
THE LAST EXORCISTS, again
another bigger banner in the Darjeeling’s Metal scene were a total change to
the various death metal genres we witnessed so far … not being an expert, my
own closest definition to the what they played would be something close to
“artsy dark metal” . With a cocoon of medieval archetype on the surface, they
displayed a fair amount of a musically technical adventure meandering within
the soundscapes of different tapestries sort of splayed on a countour of
Gothic-romanticism – now shimmering in opulence, now brooding into dramatic
melancholia . The expression of it in live theatrics was very dynamically done by
the vocalist in his very apt-presentation of what the music was reverbing in
it’s auditory density .Covers by various bands included those of Abominable Putridity,Waking The Cadaver, Insect Warfare, Cannibal Corpse, Gojira, Autopsy etc. It was past nine in the night that every-thing ended, as we stayed meeting and greeting the bands, and each other in a fun-filled revelry . We had been video-interviewing the bands that played, and the last to be done was, well, the last band itself . Metal is coming stronger each year, if not perfect over-all , and that’s what counts at the end, if it’s enough to give a push for another better gig – and that, thankfully is what we saw this time around too .
Review and Edited by Pratik Ghantaney
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