Artist: Halahkuh
Album: Desecration
Label: Unsigned
Mastered and mixed by: Adhiraj Singh
Release Date: February 9, 2013
So we have reached at a point where the national metal scene is expanding endlessly and the total number of bands just doesn’t stops increasing. We’re just one and a half months past this year and we have witnessed so many bands coming up with releases already; Mortar, Workshop, Intoxicate, Devoid and Sceptre to name a few. We also saw the legendary band, Millennium, reunite to contribute this current hot scene. So save up some bucks ‘cause you’ll have to buy a lot of CDs, release gig tickets and band merchandise in the upcoming months.
The band Ihave today is Death/Thrash Metal band (or so they call themselves that) from Pune, called Halahkuh. Now Pune has developed a very good death metal following over these years. I remember reading about the city’s scene in a local newspaper when I was there a few years back. I also got my first metal t-shirt from this ‘vadapav’ town. Halahkuh is a four piece band, formed in January 2011, consisting of Prakhar Soni on vocals and bass, Chinmay Bokil on guitars, Subhrajyoti Sarkar on guitars and Arjun Menon on drums. After performing in a lot of local shows and going through a couple of line-up changes, the band released their debut E.P. titled ‘Desecration’.
Well frankly speaking, I found the band’s music way too melodic and groovy to term it as death or thrash metal. Obviously it does have some elements from death and thrash but it seriously misses the raw and austere sound of guitars and the raspy growled vocals which we hear on any bands of the above mentioned genre. Besides, the over-processed sound of the tracksmakes the atmosphere totally different. But apart from that, the production of the album is ace. The tracks have a nice amount of dynamics and the instruments have been panned nicely.
Yet again, (like most albums today) the EP starts with a short ambient instrumental, ‘Ordeal’ which features brilliant guitar harmonies and bass lines wrapped nicely in a blanket of psychedelic sounds. It is followed by three powerful numbers. One is ‘Possessed Strangulated And Enslaved’, which starts off with a thrashy intro and moves onto a speedy down-picked riff in the verse. Like the rest of the tracks, the song is loaded with forceful screamed vocals, which I personally found quite unpleasant. The chorus is fashioned up with shouted vocals and some groove laden progressions. ‘Sacrilege’ and ‘In Extremis’ are two comparatively melodic tracks, both constituting of tuneful intros, sturdy verses and melodious choruses. ‘Sacrilege’ features guest vocals by Shashank Bhatnagar of Undying Inc. fame.
The work on guitars has been pretty impressive throughout the EP. We can witness some finely composed riffs in all the tracks. The playing is very skilled and surely deserves a nice appreciation. Look out for the wonderful solos on all the tracks; the magnificent sweeps towards the end of ‘In Extremis’ will leave you simply awestruck. A downside here is the expansive incorporation of flange in the solos, which was simply unnecessary. The drumming is quite commendable and displays a lot of skilful footwork. Arjun has done nice work with the transitions by adding pretty swift runs and elevated the energy in the songs by introducing insane blast beats.
In personal my opinion, the EP does exhibit a lot of talent but nothing new is being offered here. Sure they do have great compositions and have achieved the polished sound with top-notch production but there’s no variety in it. They end up sounding like every other band, with the same formula of dyeing thrash riffs with melody and grooves.
Summing up, if you are a fan of some heavy, groovy, thrashy and melodic music, this is the band for you.
Watch the ‘Sacrilege’ video here. Check them out on SoundCloud.
