2012 was an amazing year for every kind of listener in India. There were fair number of releases in all genres; be it rock or metal, blues or jazz, every good citizen was robbed by artists coming out with an album. The large number of music festivals held throughout the year also helped artists to promote their albums and more number of people knew about the releases. This year saw releases from big names like Indus Creed, Thermal And A Quarter and many others. The rock legends, Indus Creed also came out with an album after 17 years. We also witnessed some great releases in metal like the Bangalore’s old school legends Kryptos, who released ‘The Coils Of Apollyon’ through a German label; Bevar Sea, a stoner/doom metal band from Bangalore; and the Delhi based Black Metal outfit, 1833 AD.
So let’s see what’s in for us in the year 2013:
1. Workshop
“When Satan and God had sex, the big bang happened. However since Satan was prone to multiple orgasms another bang happened…. and that’s how Workshop was formed.” – Well this is what their Facebook profile says and as humorous as this sounds, Workshop is doing a good in making people laugh and headbang at the same time. Hats off to Sahil Makhija for forming India’s first Comedy Metal Band or as he would say ‘Heavy Mental’. Workshop released their first album ‘Khooni Murga’ in May 2009 and we all burst into laughs with tracks like ‘She Folked Up, My Jazz’, ‘Cookie Monster’ and ‘Bunty Aur Mallika Sherawat’. And now the band decides to strike again with a new album, ‘Made Love To The Dragon’. The tracklist and for the new album was posted on their Facebook page and it does consist of some funny titles I must say. The album releases this January; till then sit back tight and take a look at the tracklist:
1. Made Love To The Dragon
2. Down To Dahisar
3. Bhoot Bungla
4. Munni Jawan Vs Sheila Badnam
5. Gajanand Dhige
6. She Came
7. Naagin Ki Nazar
8. Blues Motion
9. بنتيوماليكاشيرويت
The band also said that album will also contain a bonus tenth track for those who buy the album.
Official Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/WorkshopMusic
2. The Down Troddence
Kerela has contributed to the Indian music scene by producing brilliant bands right from the beginning. Motherjane, Avial, 13AD and Chaos have been metalling up our asses for a long time now. Another glorious band hailing from ‘God’s own country’ is ‘The Down Troddence’ who have succeeded to please us all with their vivid amalgamation of death metal and Indian classical which we witnessed in their masterpiece, ‘Shiva’ (check out Sushin’s mindboggling keyboard solo in the song). The band received a couple of awards at the Indigo South Asian Music Awards this year; one for best music video (Shiva) and other for best vocalist. Earlier this year after recovering from the departure of their guitarist, Rinoy, the band moved to Bangalore and announced that they would be recording an album with Keshav Dhar (Skyharbor). The band moved to studio on November 14 and after a week-long recording session, they completed the recording. The album is expected to be released anytime in February or March.
‘Shiva’ Music video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jj37KEQofU
3. Trojan Horse
Trojan Horse is a technical groove metal band from Chennai. It started off as a two man project consisting of Hasnain (bass) and Siddhartha (guitars), both members of Carnage and were later joined by Vishnu (drums) and Siva (vocals) from Crypted. The band contributed a lot to the underground scene in Chennai and has headlined a lot of local shows. The band has been keeping their fans in touch with continuous updates on Facebook, right from the announcement of their first EP to finishing of the recording sessions. The album is now in its final stages and is expected to be released in late January.
Link to Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/trojanhorseband?fref=ts
4. Winter Gate
When you start a band, the first question which comes to your mind is “What will the genre of the band be?” Most of metal bands incline towards thrash, death or progressive. But here is a band, which restrained from being included in any one particular genre and decided to experiment with every influence they ever had. The band is none other than the Old School-Progressive-Thrash-Death Metal band hailing from the Pink City Jaipur, WINTER GATE. A band that “brings up true and pure death metal all in a progressive environment”. And we surely did witness that in their EP, ‘Dis-Illumination’, released on March 13, 2012, which received nicely by the critics. I met the frontman, Devashish Dutt in a concert a few days back where he told me that they have completed the work on their new album and are now searching for a label to go through with the release. Though no announcements have been made, we can expect the album anytime soon.
Link to Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/WinterGate?fref=ts
5. Fragarak
Fragarak is a death metal outfit based in New Delhi. Formed earlier this year, the band draws revelation from “Fragarach”, an aboriginal sword of the Celtic mythology, accorded with the potential to dismantle the most resistive of all shielded protections, the themes of their tracks being cynical. Musically, they have a progressive approach to death which makes their sound unique, a vision quite similar to that of the Father of Death Metal, Chuck Schuldiner. The marvellous blend is not something which we can progressive death metal, which makes them absolutely different from the others. Last time I witnessed such music was in Chuck’s side project, ‘Control Denied’. In a recent, they announced that their new EP titled ‘Crypts Of Dissimulation’ will be released in early 2013. So, watch for it.
Listen to Fragarak here: https://soundcloud.com/fragarak
Link to Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/fragarak.india?fref=ts
6. The Circus
“Funky. Groovy. Eclectic. Vicious. Happy. Mellow. Furious. Quirky. Angsty. Bouncy. Think of a musical recipe which has a healthy dollop of all these ingredients and you’re thinking The Circus.” – This is how they describe themselves. The Circus is a rock band from New Delhi which comes out with absolutely brilliant psychedelic/progressive music which is impeccably fused with techno effects. They released an EP a while back which had covers of some of their favourite bands. The whole idea of the EP, as explained by the band, was to work and develop their sound so that they could carry some experience to the studio while recording their next album. So we can expect some more kickass stuff from the band very soon.
Listen to The Circus here: http://www.reverbnation.com/circusthe
Link to Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/circusthe
