Is India having an international-band overdose?

Slayer is finally coming to India, but even Megadeth is returning for its second concert in the country, and both the shows – Megadeth In Delhi and Slayer in Bangalore – have a gap of a week.  The Indian thrash fan is luckier than the open-minded Indian rock music buff who will have a lot more shows to attend. It’s a great thing to have these legendary bands come to the country and blow us away, no doubt, but it really looks like the average Indian metalhead  goes to school or college or has work and family responsibilities to handle and may not be able to run to Bangalore or Delhi every other month.

MEGADETH IS INEVITABLE: Back for a second helping!

It’s a fair excuse for an outstation holiday, too, for some of us overworked people who find it taxing to even think about getting out of the city for a weekend. But the thrash fan who missed Megadeth when they hit Bengaluru in 2008 is going to have to pay through his nose to attend both the shows, or will slap his forehead after picking one extraordinary band over another he loves equally.

Having already seen Metallica and Megadeth when they performed in Bangalore, I personally won’t give a fuck about seeing those super bands live now unless they hold a concert in Mumbai, and I’m going to feel the exact same way about my all-time favourite band Slayer after this October. And Iron Maiden – I love them to death and have attended their concerts in Bangalore and Mumbai but have no desire to see them ever again. Hell bless them, because heaven can wait. But not everybody is satisfied as easily as I am.

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The younger lot has it much worse. They have all these old greats to catch up with and newer bands like Gojira and Periphery, who are playing on consecutive days over a weekend in Bangalore. Children Of Bodom and Testament and Behemoth are coming to Bangalore as well. Of course, all the shows will suffer to a small extent, but that’s what the organizers already know.

And don’t we all know what happened to Korn? It wasn’t heavy rains, but dismal sales of the very expensive tickets that didn’t allow the band to perform in Mumbai. An out-of-shape nu-metal band struggling to keep up with the times by playing dubstep wasn’t able to fool this nation (we’ve had far greater scams here), and ran back after admiring the Taj Mahal and eating chicken tikka masala.

India has been ready for international acts for a long time now, and the live scene is bubbling because of world-famous bands looking at India as the big country with hungry audiences waiting for the main course.

IN CONCERT: Metallica in Bangalore | SLIDESHOW: Megadeth in Bangalore

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Music Review: Gojira – L’Enfant Sauvage

By Himanshu Singh Rathor

Gojira! It’s a Herculean name in itself, and this review is coming from a guy who has been listening to Gojira for four years now. They have their own territory in this ginormous metal scene. It’s a major and well-known stop for any metalhead. They sound fanfuckintastic in both forms i.e live and on record. The Flesh Alive DVD is an immense evidence of how fucking tight they are and can be! They sound awfully insane in the Flesh Alive CD. That was my first impulse before album could come out (leak). But then I got my hands on L’Enfant Sauvage where they sound like gods of their scene. They have their own sound, and it makes the progressive metal world go crazy. The Way Of All Flesh was a fucking win for every Gojira fan. They have what it takes to stand apart from any other mainstream band. Back then, I got blown away from their versatility. Now, this album is an extension of the Gojira sound, but not an expansion. I was hoping for the same amount of change which took place between Terra Incognita and The Way Of All Flesh. Nevertheless, I’m still saying L’Enfant Sauvage has what it takes to unquestionably be the album of the year.

On the current album, one would easily discover the use of two or more pitches turning out to be ‘reciting tones’, the use of which is perfect. I mean, it’s just flawless. The first song to notice this in is ‘The Axe’ – a mixture of death and black metal which only Gojira is capable of doing. The reason I call it “black metal” is because of its dark journey with the chanting in the background. It makes you close your eyes and feel the ambience through your head (on-a-loop kind of material). It’s one of my duckie picks from the album. ‘Liquid Fire’ is like a prolongation of the ‘The Axe’. That doesn’t mean anything bad – its a jaw-smashing beauty with one tempo carried throughout. ‘Mouth Of Kala’ has the pace that only Gojira can carry… such a groove throughout the song, with the gloomy pitch running in the background, and bassline is world-class. Such uniqueness, oh boy!

And here comes my favorite track for this year: Gojira takes it away with ‘The Gift Of Guilt’. A great idea of what Gojira can do to a song. Diversity!? Check. Groove!? Check. Heaviness!? Check. Perfection!? Check. It passes the entire test. I like the way it ends but if a solo could have been written for the end, ‘The Gift Of Guilt’ would have crossed all the limits to be Gojirasmic. Other tracks such as ‘Pain Is A Master’ is a deluding track as it starts with a slow ambient part and bashes away into the technicality of “death metal”.

I’m thoroughly impressed with what Gojira are offering here. This album is a huge transformation, more twisted towards the unique ‘progressive’ sound, which in itself is a massive thing to achieve, but it is not, as I stated earlier, an ‘expansion’. Buy or download L’Enfant Sauvage or do whatever you want. But listen to it!

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