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.
Clinton Moniz - Guitars
Aniketh Shankar - Keys
Raveesh "Shimbeline" Salelkar - Vox
Aniketh Shankar - Keys
Raveesh "Shimbeline" Salelkar - Vox
Ninad Ingulkar - Drums
Siddharth Avadhani - Bass
Mohanish Deshmukh - Guitars
Mohanish Deshmukh - Guitars
And this time, just to mix things up they're in right-to-left order. Okay, no they're not, they're still in left-to-right order. Also, this is the new font. More Death Metal than the previous one. 50% of the band is wearing army pants. Badass!
 |
| Published with the kind permission of Mr. Clinton Moniz. |
They have the two songs up on Reverbnation. Both are for free download. And they entered the studios on the day of writing the review, so expect more stuff. Their songs have this intense storytelling feel about them. The song structures are such that it seems like the songs are trying to tell you some sort of a story, right from the opening riffs, to the shifts, transitions and down to the solos. Cymbeline certainly is actually, which I'll come to.
1.) Sands Within
The opening reminds me very much of a Prince of Persia type setting. The softness keeps building up till Raveesh lets loose this roar, you know. And in comes the some intense guitar riffs, that well you're compelled to headbang to. It also boasts some very heavy drumming. The versatility in the vocals are amazing. They're screechy and raspy when they have to, and they're growly when they have to. The atmospherics in the keyboards is something not to be missed. Pure evil. The guitar solo right in place. I would've called this song absolute perfection, if Cymbeline wasn't even better.
2.) Cymbeline
This song may or may not be the reason why their music gives me a storyteller feel. Cymbeline's based on a play by Shakespeare. The only one problem with this song is the opening. Extremely abrupt, and feels like it just started out of nowhere. They should probably redo that. But once you get used to the fact that the song has begun, it's really one amazing motherfucking song to be listening to. It had the highest number of plays on my iPod during the month preceding SF. Don't miss the 15 second growl from 1:00 onwards. It would help to listen to this song while reading the lyrics, so you get an idea of what is going on. Makes kinda sense. Super headbang breakdown from 2:45 onwards. Song fake-ends at about 3:30, restarts an keyboard opening. Sort of like the opening the song did not have. This the part where the band really surprises you, with clean vocals. I really did not expect clean vocals. In fact, having heard about 8 minutes of Dark Helm's madness, clean vocals were the last thing I was expecting. And towards the end don't miss the clean vocals providing atmospherics in the background. Stunning.
3.) Warcry
This song is a lot more conventional than the other two. Even has what you might refer to as a chorus, otherwise absent on other songs. But that's good in a live setting. It gives the crowd something to chant along with. And it's really pretty fucking cool to see the crowd shouting "Hear The Warcry" along with the band. At 2:40, song moves to a two minute long instrumental passage, breakdown, solo and everything. Irresistible guitar solo too. They just uploaded the song to Reverbnation less than five minutes ago. And Mr. Prompt-updater-of-blog-man is on the scene.
This song is a lot more conventional than the other two. Even has what you might refer to as a chorus, otherwise absent on other songs. But that's good in a live setting. It gives the crowd something to chant along with. And it's really pretty fucking cool to see the crowd shouting "Hear The Warcry" along with the band. At 2:40, song moves to a two minute long instrumental passage, breakdown, solo and everything. Irresistible guitar solo too. They just uploaded the song to Reverbnation less than five minutes ago. And Mr. Prompt-updater-of-blog-man is on the scene.
Who Will Like It? People who like quality harsh vocals. Fans of Death metal with memorable riffs, instead of simple blastbeating.
Who Will Not Like It? Non-metal fans. Actually even they might appreciate the guitar work and song structuring.
Where To Find It? Reverbnation.
Free Download? Booyah!
Lyrics? Yeap! Mandatory reading too. Not available for WarCry yet though.
This was definitely among one of my three favourite bands from SF, if not the single favourite one. In fact, while writing the post, I'm having this uncontrollable urge to watch them live. Man, if only I lived in Pune. Considering the three songs are free downloads, this band is absolutely essential to any metalhead's library.
They have three more songs: Borrowed Time and Jafar and an as yet unnamed OC. Hopefully they'll record 'em very soon.
General Links:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/darkhelmindia
Reverbnation: http://www.reverbnation.com/darkhelm
Red Bull Bedroom Jam: http://www.redbullbedroomjam.in/music/2395/warcry-unmixed_new
Allow me to leave you with some brilliant shots taken by soon-to-be-professional concert photographers Paldron Tenzin and Mrinalini Shinde.
I think Clinton kept this one as his Facebook profile pic for quite some time.
Hear The Warcry
Aniketh still has this as his Facebook
profile picture
1 comment:
Dark Helm are astonishing human beings. They are all very ill minded dog fuckers, but heavy none the less.
Post a Comment