Soli-lo-kwe

I have no idea what these guys play. I doubt if even they do. It's definitely electronic though, mixed liberally with rock/metal influences. I chanced upon the word "electrofusion" being used for this somewhere, so I'll go with electrofusion.

The News

This post is about the band from Bangalore. I'm not writing about a Japanese boy band. If you reached this link looking for the Japanese boy band, I'm sorry. Right, moving on, The News from Bangalore is a strange band to classify, so I won't. I'll just list the myriad of genres you can find in their music, and leave you to decide what works best for you: Rock, jazz, blues, funk, pop, country, acoustic and keyboard solo. Okay, that last part is only on request.

The Chronic Blues Circus

The Chronic Blues Circus, from Bangalore, are a blues band (fucking SURPRISE!!). They're one of the few bands in India who play authentic Blues, going so far as to featuring a real Harmonica in their music, so you know they ain't messing around. They've been around for more than 20 years, so they're kind of outside the scope of this blog (considering I deal in upcoming underground bands), but since they were surprised when my party shouted for Restless Woman (Exact reaction: "What did you say?? How do you know that song?!", I think, at least in their mind, they're obscure enough to qualify.

Franks Got The Funk

Finally. This is the word I've been feeling for the past three days. I've wanted to write this blog post for ten months now. And I finally get the chance, cause they just simply hadn't released their album till now. Franks Got The Funk (Henceforth "FGTF") are a funk rock band from Madras, who got second place at SF'10. Their debut album "+he Nex+ Level" is out, and three (now four) tracks are up for streaming. And well, it's awesome.

Ontologus

Ontologus were previously called Requiem, and well, Requiem seems like it would have been a pretty common name for a band, in fact there were three in India alone according to Reverbnation search. So I guess it's a good thing they changed their name. Their Reverbnation profile says Progressive Metal/ Extreme. But they're definitely not prog. And Extreme is just a general term. I'd say they're closer to Melodeath than anything else. But apparently they're "...a bunch of serious musicians who don’t take themselves seriously". So, I'm sure that's explains everything clearly.

Dark Ritual

Dark Ritual is a death metal band from Indore. In fact, they seem pretty much like Vedic Metal to me, but the vocalist maintains that they're not, so alright, I'll take his word for it. It's a good band, with nice solid compositions. The rather poor quality of their production keeps their songs from receiving too many plays on my playlist. But I still wanna share, cause production is something that can be improved you know? The real stuff is the music.

Scratch Card Winners

Scratch Card Winners is a punk band from Bangalore. And unless someone is willing to correct me, I believe they're the only punk rock band in Bangalore, and they're on a mission to bring back punk rock, or at least Zoe is. So that alone makes them worth checking out (that and the fact that the music is good of course.)

Silver

Silver is the third and last band that I'm posting about from the Orphaned Land concert. They're from Pune and play a mix of stuff, broadly described as funk rock. Their Facebook group indicates that they have about fifteen songs composed, so the least you can say about them is that they're prolific. But they've recorded and uploaded three on Reverbnation, so I'll be posting about them today.

Crash TV

Crash TV are a band which I'm having a bit of trouble with, regarding what genre to describe them best as. Since they sound a lot like The Beatles most of the times, I'm just going to hope that they allow me to use the term "Britpop", but then their Facebook says the word too, so I don't think they'd disagree either. It's good shit though. Most most definitely worth a listen. Something new.

Pitch Black Symphony

Pitch Black Symphony from Pune, play what I think is a subtle mix of progressive with symphonic power metal. (And not symphonic just because their name has the word "Symphony" in it). Pitch Black Symphony released their EP at the Orphaned Land concert (where they were opening). And well, considering it was free, I went ahead and picked it up. Good decision. It's pretty damned good. They'd released a song called Child's Cry earlier. And in preparation for the Orphaned Land concert, I'd heard it a couple of times, but was rather unimpressed and had written off PBS as just another band which is popular cause they've been around for some time. (They also celebrated their four year anniversary with the concert.) Judging by their performance at the gig, I couldn't've been more wrong. Their sound has really improved, and they've really grown as musicians. The EP has three songs. But they're all very long, bringing the total playing time to twenty two and a half minutes, so it qualifies the time condition for an EP.

Existence Failed

Existence Failed is a Groove Metal band from Pune. And I had the good fortune of watching them live at the Orphaned Land. And considering their one song on Reverbnation is up for free download, I put it on my iPod, and was listening to it on the way. And man, they're heavy, boy. And I was so impressed by their live performance that I had to blog about them before I left Pune. So here's one from Pune.

Dammit!

I'm not swearing, though God knows I fucking love to. Dammit! is the latest I picked up as I went on a 2010 EP search. They're an alternative/punk band from Dharwad (The one with the law university where Prof. Nandimath and the CoPo are from). And well, they're actually pretty damned good. Not by Dharwad standards alone, but by any standards. In fact, they're number one on the Reverbnation Dharwad charts.

Choking On A Dream - Blakc

Man, I haven't done album reviews before, but I've heard this album a total of nine times now, so I was like fuck it, might as well. In fact, yesterday alone I heard it six times. Not because I'm some of sort of crazy Blakc addict or anything, but they were playing a show in Indore, and well, I had to prepared. God only knows when I'll get to go to another gig here.

Black Sun

Black Sun is a blues-rock band from Bangalore. Three incredibly talented young boys, including an exceptionally talented guitarist, like exceptionally talented. Their music has this awesome feel to it, especially the solos. And the catchy choruses. This is also one of those bands that use their bass player very well. Handling the rhythm duties when the guitarist gets lost in one of his many guitar solos. Additionally, they won the best college band category at SF'10, so you should know they're extremely good.

Dark Helm

Dark Helm is an experimental/technical death metal band from Pune, and are easily one of my favourite upcoming bands. I think it's very melodic death metal, even though Clinton vehemently disagrees with me. Even the judges for SF'10 really liked them, considering they made the finals. And the coolest part about them is how epic they sound. Not in the I'm-using-a-random-adjective-cause-I-don't-want-to-repeatedly-keep-saying-awesome, no. I mean epic in the sense of the word. More on semantics later. But they do, they do sound pretty epic. Other adjectives that can be used to describe their music are crushing and, of course, awesome.

Tiffin Box

Tiffin Box is a Bangalore based band, made up entirely of 16-17 year old school kids. They play some sort of metal, not sure which. The vocals're very screechy, remind me of Black Metal, but nothing else about the band is black metal at all. So I'd just say metal and stop. They fuse Hindustani classical vocals with it, which is done extremely well. So I guess it could fall under Experimental. They have two singers, one for the classical vocals, who's voice sounds extremely mature, (considering he's probably not grown facial hair yet, but it's alright, I don't think any of them have), and they've found the perfect balance between the harsh vocals and clean.

bLiss

bLiss, with the intentional capitalisation, are an alternative rock band from Indore. That is a town in MP. Their Facebook page says they're White Metal, and while I outrightly reject the claim of being metal, I do admit that there may be some influences of the white in their music. 

The Lightyears Explode!

The Lightyears Explode! are an alternative/punk band from Bombay, and really are the face of Indian upcoming punk rock along with bands like Scratch Card Winners or Pip Of The Fourth Mother.

Limit Zero

Another Bangalore based band here. I think I may soon be guilty of concentrating too much on Bangalore based bands. I'm not exactly sure of what the genre here is. Their Reverbnation and Facebook pages say Progressive/Experimental. So I'm just going to go with that. I personally think they're prog death with a lot of technicality. Like a fuck lot of it. And this is one of my favourite upcoming bands from Bangalore. In fact, if they tighten their live act a little bit, they'll stop being called "upcoming" very soon. But to be fair, I've only seen them live once, and that was their first live show. And it was Strawberry Fields. Hopefully I'll see them much more often in the future.

Threshold - VerseS

VerseS is a melodic death metal band from Bangalore. They combine the harsh vocals very well with clean melodic singing, and have some brilliant atmospheric keyboard work going on with killer riffing. This is an EP review of their debut effort, Threshold.