Tag Archives: The Mask of Anubis

Kryptos 15th Anniversary Celebrations at Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore

Goethe Institut, Bangalore witnessed Indias heavy metal band, Kryptos extended 15^th anniversary celebrations on the 25^th of January. The Saturday was a tribute to old school heavy metal with Bangalore-based thrash metal band Theorized opening for Kryptos, and vocalists from Bhoomi, Dying Embrace and Witchgoat making appearances as special guests, to the delight of fans.

The evening began with Theorized ripping the stage apart with Ankit Suryakanths shredding lead solos. Yash Kumars drumming served as the backbone of Theorizeds music. They had a fully fledged set list, with fast paced riffs, and tempo and count changes that could not allow the crowd to stand still. Soon enough, they began to grow brutal, in response to the Yashs high speed double kick drumming. Ankits extraordinarily extended guitar solos was worth paying homage to. Though initial sound issues were an encumbrance for the band, what it lacked was powerful vocals contributing to the dark atmosphere.

Less than ten people were moshing at first but later, an aggressive and brutal crowd filled the area, leaving gaps for none. Heavy metal clogged the air with Nolans raspy vocals, Ganeshs bass, Rohits extended solos and Anthonys powerful triplets and hammer blasts. Their songs Nexus Legion and The Mask of Anubis with its progressive riffs conjured a moshpit too ferocious for the place to handle. Rohits dexterity made people headbang at his feet, while Ganesh besieged his fans with his skill at the other end.

Nolan kept the crowd mesmerized with the bands Wacken tales, and soon enough, Kryptos was joined by vocalist Sujay Harthi from Bhoomi. The events that followed next were of pure metal consequence as the gig time travelled to the days of Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Metallica. The Trooper shook the place with Sujay s vocals almost in lieu with Bruce Dickinson.

As it ended, Dying Embraces Vikram Bhatt took possession of the stage. Bhatt covered Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, while enticing the crowd to sing along and headbang throughout. Bharad Ravi from Witchgoat gave a neck–wrenching performance of Creeping Death and Seek & Destroy. Anthony Hoovers drumming was adrenaline- inducing and the covers were perfect. Kryptos performed a final song, accompanied by Rohits complex solo. The clock struck 10 before the crowd knew it, and it was long before the blend of melodic metal and thrash metal music could leave them undeterred.

Kryptos and Theorized kept the evening going and Nolans conversations kept the audience engaged. The continuous technical issues which Rohit faced were the only things that did not go as planned. All in all, Kryptos made sure that its 15^th anniversary was celebrated with a huge metal bang!

Kruthika Swaminathan

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The Coils of Apollyon by Kryptos

Ishaan Kumar Ishaan Kumar

A very prominent feature of the old school metal ethos is that the third album in a band’s career has very often become its landmark album. Whether it is Master of Puppets or The Number of the Beast or even Reign in Blood, third albums have reached legendary statuses in countless cases. But would equating such legendary success to a similar possibility in the case of Bangalore’s Kryptos be too much of a long shot? Read on to decide for yourself.

For the uninitiated, Kryptos essentially play a very unique brand of melodic death metal, tightly encased in a steely packaging of old-school heavy metal, thrash metal and doom metal sentiments. Their latest album The Coils of Apollyon is of course, their third offering and had already garnered a lot of hype ever since its opening track ‘The Mask of Anubis‘ was released to the public in February. The track deserves the hype in every bit. It has an epic arpeggiated hook, a beautifully orchestrated set of chorus harmonies and a tight percussive foundation which is reinforced by the steely bass from Jayawant Tewari. The starkest feature of this album though is the vocals. Vocalist/guitarist Nolan Lewis has managed this great combination of a sneer and a rasp, made even more delightful by its dual-channel presence in the mix, with a slight hint of a death growl for added flavour.

The band carries forward the same sentiment for the subsequent title track which sees slightly faster riffs but maintaining the old-school practice of essentially having the one arpeggio around which the entire song revolves. In general, The Coils of Apollyon is more on the fast side but it does have its lower tempo breathers. ‘Serpent Mage‘ is reminiscent of the old-school doom metal style made famous by Black Sabbath, Candlemass and the like. Personally though, it seems to be the only sub-par track of the album. While it starts really fast, it ends up becoming a really boring hammer-on verse riff for the verse. However, since it has so many tempo variations, it keeps itself from becoming a song that you would altogether skip.

Now the next song is the anti-thesis of boring. ‘Nexus Legions’ has it all: a thrashy 2/2 intro beat, a pentatonic intro rhythm that matches the pace of the beat and probably the most epic verse riff that this band has ever written. If by this stage of the album you are already wondering as to where the tremolo riffs have gone, here they are! The riff plays not just with octaves but in extension plays with the timbre of the song as well. ‘Eternal Crimson Spires’ then brings in another doom metal breather, this one being a lot more exciting, dark and versatile than the previous one. The speed then resumes with ‘Spellcraft’, yet another dark offering from the band, reminiscent of the glorious days of thrash metal when the music still had heavy NWOBHM traces in it. However, it is the following semi-ballad ‘Starfall’ that will definitely grab a lot of attention. This song contains a lot of well-orchestrated chord play harmonized perfectly by one of the catchiest lead hooks an Indian band has ever written, driven on perfectly by a thundering bass/drum low end march. Finally, the album’s 8-minute magnum opus ‘Visions of Dis‘ shows up. The song exemplifies the influence that old-school melodic death metal bands like Dark Tranquillity and In Flames have on the band by essentially being a doom metal song written in that style. The verse riff has a great balance of tremolos and a singular chord to hold those tremolos in place for every bar. The surprise package of the song is its mid-section which turns into a fast arpeggio attack that plays around with the octaves really well. The album then closes with the short acoustic instrumental ‘The Isle of Voices’, a beautiful way to end the album.

Lyrically, the album explores mostly mythological themes, covering everything from Egyptian to Greek and even Biblical mythology. It is not, however, a concept album but just an album with an overall idea to put across. The overall verdict is that this album is easily the best one that the band has put out till date, in terms of songwriting, technique and production. The instruments have been mixed in nearly perfectly. Most heartening is the bass mix which has managed to stay a low throb without which a song would be empty, and yet the ‘clang’ of the strings increases the overall attack of the song as well. It is an album that should be heard by fans of both old-school metal as well as the more recent bands. And while this might run into the danger of overbilling a band, this album could very well be the ‘it’ third album from India, spoken about in the beginning of this article.

Ishaan Kumar

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Riff ’em All at The Kyra Theatre, Bangalore

Riff ’em All was scheduled one day prior to Metallica’s much-looked-forward-to concert in Bangalore and was meant for all the out-of-towners who had descended upon good ol’ Bangalore to see what would hopefully be Metallica’s maiden show in India, and also for some Bangaloreans who were planning to skip the Metallica concert. Riff ’em All held a lot of promise and was all set to showcase some of Bangalore’s best metal bands.

After battling the rains that evening, I walked in right when Culminant had just taken stage (I had unfortunately missed Corrode’s performance). I’ve seen quite a few of their performances this year, and this is one band that has grown stronger with every performance. Starting off with ‘Wrath of the Fallen’ they held everyone’s attention and electrified the stage with their very first song. They played two more OCs – ‘Innate Instinct’ and ‘Realm of the Tyrant’ much to the crowd’s delight. What was supposed to follow was their cover of Slayer’s ‘Raining Blood’ which didn’t happen because the bass drum’s skin gave way and since there seemed to be no alternative means of going ahead, their set came to an untimely end. The band said their goodbyes, apologized for the short set and left despite people cheering for more.

The next band on stage was Gorified, Bangalore’s mainstay goregrinders. They played a longer set this time around, which included two covers. Gorified gave the crowd a good, strong dose of brutality and put on a pretty intense show despite the usual sound problems that plague Kyra, playing seven OCs. The first and the last songs from their setlist, ‘Autopsy Devourment’ and ‘Vulgar Display of Genital Flatulence’ elicited the best response from the crowd. They finally ended their set with two covers – Cannibal Corpse’s ‘Stripped, Raped and Strangled’ and the other surprisingly, Metallica’s ‘Damage Inc.’ this time with former Abandoned Agony drummer Shreyas Kamath on drums. They were the first and probably the only band that night which managed to get the crowd into a violent mosh!

The mighty Dying Embrace, one of the oldest bands in Indian Metal, the grand-daddies of the scene so to speak, finally came on stage. This performance was highly awaited and they did not disappoint. The horns thrown high up in the air and frenzied chants of ‘Dying Embrace’ stood testament to this fact. They played quite a great selection of songs, their set had ‘Blood Rites’, the Sabbath inspired ‘As Eternity Fades’, ‘The Passing Away’, ‘Spawn of the Depths’, ‘Dagda – His Time has Come’, ‘Grotesque Entity’, ‘Oremus Diabolum’ and they ended with their tribute to one of the bands that have inspired them, a cover of Autopsy’s ‘Twisted Mass of Burnt Decay’. Great music apart, the showmanship was brilliant, each song had its own artwork displayed, Deepak’s drumming was impeccable, Jimmy’s solos were met with wild cheering and applause and had the audience hungry for more while Vikram Bhat absolutely owned the stage with his spirited performance. The set finally ended with them stating that their next appearance would be alongside Japanese Black/Thrash band Abigail in 2012’s edition of the Trendslaughter fest. Dying Embrace was most certainly the highlight of that night.

Bevar Sea, the penultimate act of the night was up next. The band has only played a handful of shows and yet is popular for its stellar performances and this night was no different. They kicked of their set with ‘The Smiler’ and the riffs and thundering rhythm sections hit the crowd with the force of a sledgehammer. The heavy onslaught continued with them playing ‘Universal Sleeper’ and finally a cover as was the trend that night, Black Sabbath’s ‘Lord of this World’. ‘Abishtu’ was up next and had a majority of the ecstatic crowd screaming along. What followed was a pleasant surprise – Bevar Sea, fresh from their Sabbath tribute in Chennai, decided to play yet another cover – this time it was Sabbath’s ‘The Wizard’. They played one of their original compositions ‘Mono Gnome’ and just when people thought their set had finally ended, they pulled yet another Sabbath number from the hat, ‘Sweet Leaf’. Though the set had a couple of fumbles along the way, it was one of the best that night.

The headliners Kryptos took stage after a slightly lengthy sound check. Decked out in trademark denim and leather, they brought forth their brand of blazing, old school metal. Their setlist for Riff ’em All was slightly different from what they had played throughout this year and it included two songs from their upcoming album The Coils of Apollyon. They started off with ‘Satyr-like Face’ and then played songs from the first two albums including ‘Order of the D.N.A.’ and ‘The Revenant’. ‘The Mask of Anubis’ and for the very first time ‘Spellcraft’ from Coils followed. ‘Tower of Illusions’ and ‘Forgotten Land of Ice’ were up next and the band had a surprise in store for the crowd, not another cover, but ex-member of Kryptos and current vocalist of Bevar Sea, Ganesh joined them on stage for the final song of the night ‘Descension’.

The organizers had arranged a massive merchandise stall which had everything from CDs, t-shirts and posters from a variety of bands, which included bands that were playing that night among others. It also served as a great place for interaction with fans and bands from other cities. All in all, the gig was great, had a responsive crowd with a massive turnout of around 350 people and some brilliant performances – a perfect prelude for the Metallica concert.

Siddharth Nagarajan

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