Artist: Grungy Morphins
Album: Bonded By Brutality (3 way split with Sangre and Necrocest)
Label: Autopsy Records
Release Date: September 1, 2012
When we talk about the metal scene in India, many people believe that Bangalore is the haven for all artists and listeners. But the truth is that Bangalore is just a good host of concerts because of concentration of money and abundance of space, and the fact that it is a metropolitan aids to the development of a fan-base there. Whereas the eastern part of India, apart from being temples of serenity and possessing beautiful landscapes, also produces most number of agents of chaos, i.e. metalheads. Calling themselves as “The Gorkha Metal Warriors”, Grungy Morphins is one such band, hailing from Darjeeling, West Bengal. Being one of the pioneers of Extreme Metal in India, the band has a sound which exhibits elements from various types of sub-genres like Black Metal, Blackened Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal and Death Metal.
Citing influences from bands like Cradle Of Filth, Kalodin, Dark Murder Scheme and Dimmu Borgir, Grungy Morphins was formed in 2000 and went through many line-up changes and with the current line-up, the band recently saw its first major release: ‘Bonded By Brutality’, a three-way split with Sangre (California, U.S.) and Necrocest (Wales, U.K.). The current line-up of the band is Hozo on vocals, Kusang on guitars, Gaurav on bass and Ashes on keys and Triratna on drums.
The five song section of Grungy Morphins is kick-started with a two minute adrenaline filled track called ‘I.T.N.O.T.G’. The track has a simple song structure and a constant tempo but gets you straight to headbanging right from the very first second. The riffs on the verse and chorus are pretty straightforward death metal and demonstrate fine quality of composition. The next song on the album is ‘The Curse of the Ravens in the Land of Black Jesus Where Wolves Howl in Harmony’. Yes, that’s just the title of the song! It unveils strong influence of black metal bands like Dimmu Borgir and Emperor with dark sounding arpeggios and cult black metal harmonies. The keyboards in the song create a very demonish and gloomy environment, which is very different from ‘I.T.N.O.T.G’.
‘Darkness Without Pain’ again lightens up the atmosphere with up less intense nature of the riffs. The song starts up with a thrashy, sort of uplifting progression and continues with heavy and guttural vocals accompanied by groovy guitars. We can witness a terrific solo in the middle of the song with shreds and sweeps all over the fretboard. The vocals are on a high in this particular track with Hozo covering a good range; apart from the raspy growls, he does a section of very impressive screeching vocals which clock in at about 1:10.
Next up is ‘Dherai Lajj (A Tribute to the Legends)’ which starts with a very dull and murky bit with keyboards, violin (presumably), guitar and satanic vocals and fades into an intense section with drums and distorted guitars. At about half way through the song, a brilliant guitar solo can be heard which is followed by a syrupy and melancholic segment. The last on the album is ‘Dark-Ula’, which starts off with a spine-chilling keyboard intro and fades into a firm mid tempo riff which almost remains persistent throughout the song mostly.
On the other side of the coin, the production of the album is quite disappointing. The volumes of different instruments have not been set properly; some instruments sound flat whereas some sound sharp; at certain places cymbals sound louder than the snare and toms. One could say that it is a failed attempt to get the Norwegian black metal sound. Apart from that, the bass drums on the verse of ‘The Curse of the Ravens…’ sound very abruptly when played in triplets, probably because of the poor production. The deep growls also come off very mucky in most of the tracks and there
Summing, the album has some nice compositions and could do much better with good sound quality.
Official Webpage: http://www.grungymorphins.webs.com
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