Beer Review: Shepherd Neame’s Bishops Finger

By PRAYAG ARORA-DESAI

Bishops Finger is:

1)  A signpost in Kent, once serving to point Christian pilgrims
toward the tomb of Saint Thomas of Canterbury.

2) A Kentish beer named after said signpost.

3) A really kinky sex move, according to Urban Dictionary.

The sex move sounds disgusting. The beer I like. It’s the third beer
I’ve sampled from Britain’s oldest brewery – Shepherd Neame – and as
seems to be the case with all of Shepherd Neame’s beers, Bishops
Finger has historical significance. It was first brewed in the year
that malt rationing came to an end in Britain, because heck, more
malts! A resultantly strong brew, it fills your mouth with that
lovely, full bodied, toasted, caremelly maltiness. Not overpoweringly,
but the right amount. My nose detects it as more in the bitter
direction of fruity, which comes from the hops. And there’s a lot of
hops, mind you, which makes this stuff bitter as hell. If the only
beer you’re used to drinking comes out of a can labelled Kingfisher or
Budweiser or Foster’s, you’d rather stick to a more moderately
flavoured lager than this strong British ale. If you’re a writer
though, you’ll love the bitterness. Ha ha, joke. But really, it’s a
characterful kind of bitter, giving way to a mellow fruitiness which
comes from where I’m not too sure, but there’s a distinct sourness
going on which suggests some citrusy ingredients. It’s also a good
beer to look at, with it’s almost bourbon like colouration and
headstrong nature outside the bottle. I washed this down with a half
tablespoon of orange marmalade; the good, not-too-sweet kind of
marmalade with plenty of little bits of orange peel. Great fucking
combination.

Even with that ridiculously purple label, Bishops Finger is a good,
strong, satisfying drink. Best drunk with a beard on your face.

Solar Deity now has Amogh Sharma on the drums and Niraj Singh Chauhan on lead guitar

Catch Solar Deity LIVE at Vehement Era: Enslavement in Bangalore

Free Download: Devil Worship

Beer Review: Kronenbourg 1664

Every time I decide to quit drinking alcohol, it pops up at odd times and in strange ways to remind me of the position it holds in my life. On this dry day (in India the government doesn’t let us legally purchase or drink alcohol on certain days of the year) I have here with me a beer from France, and what a fine lager it is. Not that I had given up on lagers; this country and many other beer-brewing nations have downright awful beers leading the world market, but I have had enough lagers to understand that there obviously are far better ones than the ones I’ve tried.

Kronenbourg 1664, then, can be added to the list. Firmly crisp and easy to drink, this beer has a likable hop flavour, and being a clean drink, can be had in large quantities. The taste stays for some time, reminding me of my first taste of beer, when the taste really seemed to stay. It’s only the cost that would keep me from drinking this again; I bought only a pint, and for this price I can get something I’d enjoy a lot more: a wheat beer or an ale. Still, it’s a dry day and a pint of Kronenbourg 1664 in this green bottle is all I have, alcohol bite and all.

RATING: 3.5/5

Solar Deity T-shirts and CDs now available in Bangalore and Kolkata

To place an online order, contact our record label Nephalist Recordings.

FREE DOWNLOADS: Solar Deity’s Devil Worship | Solar Deity’s The Darkness Of Being | Solar Deity’s Snowless | Solar Deity’s In The Name Of Satan

Album Review: Inquisition – Obscure Verses For The Multiverse

The latest offering from the black-metal masters is as imposing as everything else by them

Exactly like Motorhead and Mortician, Inquisition is a band that never really changes, and that’s how it should be, as most of their fans will tell you. I’m a fan, too. But, you see, I grow weary of listening to the same album every time. Motorhead everybody loves, and everyone has a Motorhead album that they can listen to from start to end and enjoy thoroughly. Mine is 1916. With Mortician, I don’t have a favourite release as such, but there are quite a few songs I appreciate, and their discography (on those very rare occasions that I have Mortician cravings) is on shuffle whenever it is, and that feels right.

With their previous three albums – all very good – Inquisition seemed to be aiming at delivering that one huge album, and that release was Ominous Doctrines Of The Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm (read my review of that masterpiece here), on which Lord Dagon perfected his songwriting technique, and grouped with the blasting that came from Incubus and that dense overall sound, made for a crushing release that was sonically devastating from its first moment and instantly made you raise the horns and move your head in a circular motion.

Obscure Verses For The Multiverse, the 2013 album from Inquisition, offers more of the same – or as George ‘Corpsegrinder’ Fisher would say about an upcoming Cannibal Corpse album: “Same, same… but different.” At first listen I was blown away, on second listen I compare it to its antecedent and think that this one isn’t that great, but that’s how I usually feel about Inquisition albums, only to be proved wrong later. Third listen onwards I hear Obscure Verses For The Multiverse as what it is: the latest Inquisition album  – and how does one compare albums of a band that never really changes? I’d like to say the songs on Obscure Verses For The Multiverse aren’t as easily catchy as a lot of other Inquisition tracks, but I also can’t stop listening to this album midway, and the more attention I pay the clearer it becomes that it’s yet another magical release from the world where darkness is lord and death the beginning. It’s as imposing as everything else by them.

Obscure Verses For The Multiverse is packed with thrashy riffs and masterful drumming shrouded in that opaque sound. There’s a song from Nefarious Dismal Orations (read Dipankar ‘Demonos’ Roy’s review of that album here). Yeah, it’s more of the same, and it’s “same, same, but different,” and since we’re talking about a great band we love for never really changing, I don’t think we’ll hear any complaints.

RATING: 5/5

DOWNLOAD SATANIC BLACK METAL FROM INDIA: Solar Deity’s Devil Worship | Solar Deity’s The Darkness Of Being | Solar Deity’s Snowless | Solar Deity’s In The Name Of Satan

Solar Deity to perform live rituals at Vehement Era: Enslavement in Bangalore

That’s right! We’re hitting old Bengaluru for the second time this year, and 2013’s Vehement Era: Enslavement has a lineup that will blow you away. For my non-metalhead readers who can’t make head or tail of these morbid logos, these are the names of the bands: Chaos (thrash metal), Dark Desolation (black metal), Gutslit (death/grind), Festered Wound (gore/noise), Nihilus (technical death metal), Solar Deity (Satanic black metal) and Theorized (thrash metal). If you’re in Bangalore this Sunday, Ion Bar & Kitchen is where you should come to drink alcohol and enjoy these seven metal acts. Hail Satan!

Vehement Era: Enslavement event page on Facebook

FREE DOWNLOADS: Solar Deity’s Devil Worship | Solar Deity’s The Darkness Of Being | Solar Deity’s Snowless | Solar Deity’s In The Name Of Satan

Complete Lyrics to Solar Deity’s Devil Worship

RAISE THE HORNS | SUPREME EVIL | THROUGH THE HALLWAYS OF NARAK

COMPLETE LYRICS TO THE DARKNESS OF BEING | COMPLETE LYRICS TO IN THE NAME OF SATAN

 

Solar Deity Lyrics: Raise The Horns

Awaken the centuries to this time
Reign of terror begins from now
Satan emerges from a sea of blood
Slaying mortals will quench his thirst

People of the blackened kingdom
Look to the sky and their fate they curse
The end of all they believed in is here
Cannot stop it with mere prayers

Seize the children
Teach them all to

Raise the horns
Sing the hymns that praise the One
King of our kingdoms
Call upon the hordes
Our axes thirsty for fresh blood
Demons, raise the horns

As angels die by my sword
Paradise is filled with blood
Humans will perish in chains
Condemned to a life of pain

A world in darkness is engulfed
As we are blessed by Lord Satan
He lifts his heads, his eyes have a gleam
With my devotion He is pleased

Enslave the women
Impregnate them all

Raise the horns
Dedicate your life to evil
Exist for Satan
Obey the Unholy One
Sacrifice all your gods
Demons, raise the horns

From the fountain
Drink the water of wisdom
Knowledge is power
Might is right
Spill the blood

Sacrifice
Demons, raise the horns

Karan Patel’s Short Story: A Filthy Kitchen

A FILTHY KITCHEN – Written by KP

[Prelude]

Got a hurdle
My legs are broke
You’re running high
I am on a helpless low

So i indulge in dirt
Smash my face on the wall
But its working good
Another shot of soot

———————————-
I woke up to the sound of flies buzzing and in some instances hissing all over my coffee that was nicely packaged by some combined brain of a ruthless marketing manager and an egoistic engineer.I cannot clearly remember, and sometimes memory is best forgotten and this was not one of those times, but i do remember that i had bought that disgust that is part chocolate powder, part milk and part coffee at a popularly fancied corporation three days ago.

I could manufacture this garbage at home. Yet i choose to pay 3 dollars and fifty four cents to this organization who would not give a fuck what happens to me if i stopped coming in or if i tragically died at their very doorstep. But my dreams are hampered. My ambitions are handicapped. My basic will to breathe has been pampered by the fact that i have organs in my so called living human body that allows me to continue living life just like everyone around me. Neighbors, Friends, Family, Co Workers, that cute punk rock girl who hates her job as the girl who makes my stinking coffee once in three days. But she is the only one i like these days.

We talk about all our favorite bands and artists such as Some Velvet Sidewalk, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Kinks, Mudhoney, Supergrass, Kula Shaker, Clutch, Truckfighters, Rory Gallagher, Porcupine Tree, Katatonia, Neil Young, Soundgarden, Opeth, Bob Dylan and Alice In Chains. There are a million more bands that we speak of and i am absolutely nuts and bolts about all of them but unfortunately these are the bands and artists that come to my mind right now as i write this dribble and lately i have even started talking about all the Indian bands that i have really come to bang my head to. Bands like Bevar Sea, Skrat, Blackstratblues, Scribe, The Supersonics, Goddess Gagged, Skyharbor and many many many more. Primarily Bevar Sea. That band just fucking rocks the shit out of me.

Besides she does not fail to talk about her boyfriend who she lives with, so all these fantasies i have made up in my mind that i plan on doing with her while she bores me with her stories about how her love life is so great wear me down. Fantasies that i, in my head, plan on doing with her such as going on beach walks, skateboarding with her, watching good movies, boring Hollywood crap, stand up comedy, drinking wine, beer, whisky, rum, smoking weed, endlessly fucking all night and endlessly fucking all sober and hungover days, going for open mic evenings and together supporting local bands and artists, and yes, those cheesy candlelight dinners, meeting her parents and pretending that i actually like them, fucking her again and again in all possibly instinctively known sexual positions, just sort of slowly fade away and it makes me want to throw that coffee that is bubbling with high temperature on her pretty as a Kate Hudson’s smile face and find the next bar where i can get drunk out of my fucking mind and then later go to the seediest liquor store to score the worst fucking alcohol and go back to my apartment and in my peaceful lunacy, suck it all up and smash my head to these amazing bands and maybe just poison the fuck out of me.

Who remembers, how often i go to the coffee shop, but i do and i will continue to do so and that has started to make me sick.

A sudden wave of nostalgia oceans all the way to the shore. At this point you think i am going to talk about someone i loved. But no, i am talking about a trivial subject like when i moved into this beach side apartment and my carpet was fresh and new. Fast forward four years since i moved into this soothing as fuck, Aqua Rain smelling, newly painted apartment and in plain simple honest words, i have fucked the place up. I am not expecting the return on my deposit. I will be lucky if i don’t have to pay any additional dough to the landlord. What kind of fucked up terminology is landlord anyway? Yeah, fine, he owns the property. There is no need to bring the word “Lord” into the equation, especially since we are living in 2013.

Now the carpet has a  whole lot of holes caused by my drunken state of cigarette burns. There are burger pieces scattered on one side. Spilt beer, rum and whisky stains. Semen, you ask? Its possible. A whole many empty beer bottles and a whole many beer bottles i could not complete in its full extent. You know, that last micro sip still lingering in that bottle but you are too fucked up to care and a fresh new chilled as ice will be the only thing that will stimulate that very little, petty, spoilt, small, sick as fuck brain of yours. A few of the flies have decided to suck on those. I guess you could say, my kind of flies. All I say to myself is “Yeah, fuck the coffee, beer is the real shit. Way to advance, Flies”.

I am scared. I am afraid. I feel fear. Ironically, i fucking hate insects. You may argue, so does everyone. But i am not everyone.
Everyone does not wake up to the annoying sounds of a swarm of flies guttering over a purchased coffee that was three days old, burger bits  and empty bottles of alcohol that are begging to get the fuck out of the apartment and into the recyclable trash where they so rightly belong.

==The End=====

Inquisition “Obscure Verses For The Multiverse” Review

Sceptre “Age Of Calamity” Review”