Artist: Intoxicate
Album: Dawn Of Apathy
Label: Independent
Release Date: February 2, 2013
As we all know, the metal scene in India has expanded a lot in the past few years. The number of bands shot up exponentially and now we, more often than not, find ourselves in a pub, wearing a black tee, drinking beer and watching our favourite local band play. The most interesting thing is that we have metal bands not only in big metropolitans like Kolkata, Bangalore, New Delhi, Mumbai etc. but also in other cities like Jaipur, Ahmedabad and even Lucknow. Believe me, that is true! But one thing that I fail to understand is the people’s extravagant addiction to groove. It’s not a bad thing to have a groovy touch to your tracks but again it has turn, it has become the only formula that bands apply and we rarely get to see some raw and atavistic music these days.
Joining the league is an Experimental Groove Metal band hailing from Kolkata called Intoxicate. Their music is a powerful jumble of groove laden progressions and intense breakdowns with a (very) strong essence of metalcore music. Intoxicate was formed in late 2010 and within this short span of two and a half years, the band has achieved a lot by winning numerous college fests and performing in a few pro-shows. With Somagni Biswas on vocals, Shamik Mukherjee on guitars and vocals, Sarbajeet Roy on guitars, Bhaskar Biswas on bass and Swamantak Burman on drums, the band released their debut E.P. titled, ‘Dawn Of Apathy’.
Starting with an ambient electronic piece, ‘Denial’, ‘Dawn Of Apathy’ follows the common trend of cranking up with an instrumental. With the track, you would get the feel of listening to a properly engineered record with apt panning of instruments and nice amount of dynamics on the songs. The production of the E.P. is indeed very good for a debutant. The album moves on to its heavier side with the song, ‘A New Dawn Rises’. We can witness some dexterous tremolo-picked palm-muted riffs connected to various breakdown sections with immaculately tailored bridges. During the song, I noticed that the band’s sound is very similar to their fellow band, Chronic Xorn, but later on after giving the whole album a listen, I was proved wrong (not entirely though). The album is jam-packed with tons of groovy breakdowns, especially in the tracks, ‘Avenged The Revolution Succeeds’ and ‘Mankind In Rage’, that make them sound like melodious versions of djent tracks.
The choruses on all songs are in general pretty melodious and feature clean vocals on them, which are often sung in harmonies. Groove lovers should check out the song, ‘Misery And Disbelief’, which is just weighed down with downright groovy sections along with the constant skull pounds. The work on guitars has been pretty impressive on the album. The songs contain skilful lead runs and arpeggios embedded on the melodious sections; look out for the wonderfully crafted solos on ‘A New Dawn Rises’ and ‘Misery And Belief’.
We can also witness some skilful drumming on the track; it is pretty dynamic. The work on bass is pretty ordinary as it offers nothing new. The tracks could have sounded more innovative with a few diverse basslines. Somagni has showed nice work with his hostile grunts, although a bit more variety would have made it much better. Looking at the other side of the coin, although the album displays good musicianship throughout, the songs lack diversity and tend to go monotonous as we progress towards the end. The songs have been overloaded with breakdowns and sound repetitive.
Summing up, the release is pretty good and a treat for groove and metalcore lovers.
