Unseen Underground Ragnarok 09 in pictures

Here’s Unseen Underground Ragnarok 09 in pictures. Article and podcast coming soon!

Unseen Underground Ragnarok 09 featured Rampazze, Atmosfear, Purple Blood, Kaashmora, Zygnema, Abandoned Agony, Blind Image and Crypted.

Unseen Underground gets heavier!

The extreme metal scene in Chennai has taken a huge leap last Sunday with Unseen Underground Pub Fest V that happened in Geoffrey’s pub. The gig featured two bands from Bangalore and two from Chennai. All the four bands stood to their reputation of delivering their best heavy numbers keeping the crowd wild. Despite of heavy rainfall lashing the city the crowd turned out in good numbers, thanks to the successful previous editions of Unseen Underground. We can now say that there is a fan group following these pub fest editions.

For the third time in a row Escher’s Knot played for this fest. They opened the gig with a cover song by Textures called Drive. With Textures coming to India soon, this one gave the taste of their music to the local crowd. The shouting vocals and the driving riffs provided an excellent head banging experience. The next song was This Page Has Been Intentionally Left Blank. Abhijeet gave tongue to his skills in variety of vocals. He screeches one time like an evil black metal band’s vocalist and then let out a growl like a monster. Good varieties for a technical hardcore band. Then they followed with Break The Cypher and then with The Mayan Calendar two great tracks delivered without a blemish. Sepultura’s Territory was next. Chennai crowd didn’t need an introduction for this song. It has been played in almost all the gigs featuring Manu as the drummer. The crowd shrank the stage as they moved forward in a mosh. Finally they finished their set list with Up For Nothing.

Bangalore based brutal death metal fit Abandoned Agony took the stage next. They delivered brutality to the crowd – right up on the face. They started with their title song from their demo Infected Unborn. For a minute the front row was in a shock to hear the merciless brutal music. Death metal at its best. Genocide was next on the set list. The band stuck to the laws of death metal without violating it even for a single moment. They followed it with three quick numbers Terror Assassination, Sadistic Pleasure, and Deformed. All the songs featured a very short evil guitar solo riffs that you normally hear in all Cannibal Corpse albums. Then there was a Cannibal Corpse cover and the crowd guessed it right – Skull Full of Maggots. Almost flawless, only if they had a second guitarist to fill the blank areas amidst the little solos. Their last song was Barbaric Killing, probably the lengthiest song in their set list. The song title itself defines the music. Great ensemble overall.

Local favorite Blind Image came on the stage next. Having released their second full length album More Than Human recently, they had to impart the sound to the crowd. They started with title song of their latest album. What a change in their sound from their previous album. This band has evolved a long way and progressed to progressive hardcore metal. The song sounded great especially during the melody interludes. Then the next track was Deciphered. The music however was not that easy to decipher as progressive metal is always. Lamb of God cover was next. Black Label was a good choice to put in between their list as it gave a good excitation for the crowd. Ominous was the next track. Again a very tight performance. Then they followed with Now You Have Got Something To Die For, a good headbanger from Lamb of God. No prizes for guessing where Blind Image gets the inspiration from. They finished off with Glitch In The System, but it was evident that there wasn’t any in their music.

The last band on stage was Theorized from Bangalore. This thrash metal outfit has already got a good fan base in Chennai. First song in their set list was Dark Incarnation. The basic sound of this band is not too hard to define as it is mostly old-school. Next two tracks were Raise The Dead and Thought Experiment. There was a huge mosh in the crowd that almost dismounted a huge standing loudspeaker. The band didn’t show any sympathy to the host as they followed with Death’s Pull The Plug. The old-school metal fans had a good treat listening to this masterpiece. Their last two songs were Blackout and Venomous Tormentia. Most people were unwilling to leave even after the bands packed. They can all only wait for the sixth edition of the fest!

Check out the pictures of the show here.

Videos of the show coming soon!

Unseen Underground Pubfest V – in pictures

Here are the pictures from Unseen Underground Pubfest V featuring Escher’s Knot, Abandoned Agony, Blind Image and Theorized! 100 kickass metal pictures.

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Write up and videos coming soon. You can find the write up here!

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Photographs by Sudhamshu Hebbar and Naveen

More Than Human launched!

Blind Image launched More Than Human yesterday at HOC, Adyar. And man! It was a wild show with metalheads showing up inspite of it raining continuously for the past couple of days in Chennai. Bands that played at the launch were Escher’s Knot and Blue Carbon other than Blind Image themselves.

Review of More Than Human coming soon.

Read the preview here.

You can watch Blind Image perform in Chennai again at the Unseen Underground Pubfest along with Escher’s Knot, Theorized and Abandoned Agony.

Blind Image’s More Than Human

I’ve known about the existence of Chennai-based metal band Blind Image for sometime, but it was only last week that I actually listened to them, when the guys at Rock and Raga asked me to listen to a track from their yet to be released album, More Than Human. Not being into the local metal scene, I was pleasantly surprised by what hit me as soon as I touched ‘play’.

The track ‘Deciphered‘ showcases the songwriting and skills of a mature band. If I have to go by this song, Blind Image plays a new-age form of thrash metal which fuses the groove of Pantera with the energy of a Devin Townsend project (I can’t really say why but I hear a similarity). The hard-edge shouted/grunted vocals (David) are antagonizing in a good way, and the melodic clear-voiced chorus relieves the built-up tension. The guitars(Shri and Prashant) are chunky in the right places with catchy lines to hold the interest of the listener, the bass(Muneeb) adds well to the groove factor and the machine-like drumming(Krishna) adds to the modern thrash sound.

To sum it all up, if ‘Deciphered’ is a representative of the album ‘More than Human’, I think I need to get it ASAP.

Blind Image is launching the album at High On Caffeine, Chennai on November 7th. Be there to grab your copy!