They say, “Dude you know how to play a guitar, you’re soon gonna be on stage and everyone will be lined up to watch you and your band play!” Well that’s easier said than done. Little do they know that it’s no child’s play to search for musicians who not only want to play the same kind of music as you do, but also possess a similar vision that you have for your band. This becomes even tougher when you’re in a country like ours. It takes a lot to form a metal band, given the diverse nature that it has; you find a good drummer but he wants to play groove metal whereas you want to play thrash.

Despite all the teething troubles, we witnessed a lot of bands this year in n number of festivals which brought a surge of excitement in the whole country. Let’s check out the bands which stood on top in this fruitful year. They are in no particular order

Kryptos

1998. When metal just existed in the dark alleys and we had almost zero bands in the country, these noble warriors stepped up and put up a force that would lead the metal scene in India. They introduced India to the global metal scene by successfully completing a cross country tour of Europe, the first one to do so, and posed a big inspiration to the infinite bands which the country today bares. This year saw the release of their third studio album, ‘The Coils Of Apollyon’, first through Iron Fist in February and then through AFM Records, Germany in September. The album received massive critical success scoring really good on both Indian and international portals. Apart from the release and successful local gigs, Kryptos also opened from two legendary thrash bands Kreator and Testament.

Zygnema

As soon as these people won Rolling Stone Metal Awards in 2011, we just knew that they’re going to metal up our asses in the upcoming years, and sure they did. Zygnema is a Mumbai based Thrash/Groove Metal outfit that had one hell of a year. The band, known for their groundbreaking performances, smashed up hell lot stages around the world this year, right from the small ones in colleges to the massive W.E.T. Yes, you heard it right. After clearing Wacken Metal Battle’s Mumbai leg and then the scoring in the final, Zygnema conquered the masses in Wacken Open Air Festival, the second band in India to do so.

Skyharbor

These guys were requested by none other than Chris Adler (drummer, Lamb Of God) himself to open for their very first gig in the Resolution World Tour. Starting out as a simple bedroom project by Keshav Dhar, Skyharbor is often acclaimed to be India’s most high profile band and is hugely appreciated by many big names around the world. Apart from conquering Clark’s Exotica, these geniuses also came out with their most-awaited debut album, ‘Blinding White Noise: Illusion & Chaos’ via Basick Records which features master musicians like Marty Friedman (ex-Megadeth), Daniel Tompkins (ex-Tesseract), Vishal J Singh (Amogh Symphony) and Sunneith Revankar (Bhayanak Maut). They made an appearance at the Euroblast Festival playing alongside the likes of Scar Symmetry and Tesseract and headlined Strawberry Fields in Bangalore. This band is definitely doing a good job in giving Indian metal scene, a global recognition.

Inner Sanctum

Message to the organizers: If you are getting someone big to headline your event, consider these guys to open the event as they are gonna rip the stage off. Starting from Cradle Of Filth and Metallica last year to Vildhjarta, Kreator, Slayer and Testament this year, these guys have covered them all. The story behind the Rock ‘N India gig was even more interesting as they beat the mighty Kryptos in a nail-biting online voting contest to decide the band who would support Slayer alongside Brahma.

Eccentric Pendulum

Eccentric Pendulum is a Progressive Metal outfit (to cut it short) from Bangalore and definitely had an outstanding year. Apart from headlining some local gigs, the band supported Opeth, Karnivool, Kreator and Gojira in the n number of international concerts which happened in this splendid year and seized the gigantic SWR Festival in Portugal with the likes of Immortal, Gorod and Candlemass. The band also bagged a lot of awards like Best Drummer, Best Bassist and Best Album at Rolling Stone Metal Awards and the Best Drummer at Jack Daniels Rock Awards, making it a brilliant year for the band.