Jakub Zytecki interview

I have been following Polish guitarist Jakub Zytecki for some time now. I first heard of him through his old band, Disperse. Last month he released his 3rd full-length album, Remind Me.

Jakub Zytecki shared with me the inspiration behind his latest album, composing heavy music again, and also his upcoming European and US tours.

Tracks played on this episode

Jakub Zytecki – Remind Me

Jakub Zytecki – Heart

Stream/purchase Remind Me here: https://biglink.to/isAm

Follow Jakub Zytecki on Facebook

Non metal releases of 2022

A couple weeks late but Best of 2022 lists coming up, starting with Non metal

Greg Puciato – Mirrorcell

2nd solo album from the former The Dillinger Escape Plan vocalist and it’s totally not what you expect from him. This album is in the Alt-rock/Grunge space.

Haavard – self titled 

Debut release from Håvard Jørgensen, a former member of Ulver and Satyricon. Largely acoustic album transport you to the frosty north from the first track itself. I used this album to wind down at the end of the day.

Ian Blurton’s Future now – Second Skin

Canadian rock legend mixes rock and roll with some psychedelia. Must listen for guitar rock fans.

Joji – Smithereens

I discovered this Japanese Singer-songwriter on a chill mix playlist on Spotify. Since then I’ve had it on heavy rotation. Vocal-driven pop layered on top of catchy electro beats.

Raman Negi –  Shakhsiyat

Former frontman of Indian rock band, The Local Train. His debut album is a catchy mix of guitars and wordplay. I did enjoy it for someone who is not that fluent in Hindi.

Metal list coming up soon.

Tobias Gustavsson (Nestor) interview

Kids in a Ghost town, the debut album of Swedish rock act Nestor was one of my favourite releases of 2021. I discovered the band thanks to my friend friend Andy Dowling of the Australian metal act Lord and the host of the Andy Social podcast.

On this episode, I spoke to vocalist Tobias Gustavsson about the recent success of Nestor, re-release of Kids in a Ghost town by Napalm Records, and even his experience as a songwriter in Sweden.

Full audio episode

Tracks played on the episode

Nestor – It ain’t me

Nestor – Signed in Blood

Check out Kids in a Ghost Town – https://lnk.to/KidsInAGhostTown 

https://www.nestortheband.com

Fistful of Metal – Boxout.fm India Covid19 fundraiser

This weekend is a special episode of Fistful of Metal. It is a part of the India Covid19 fundraiser stream on Boxout.fm.

My guest is Dan Tompkins from Tesseract/White Moth Black Butterfly

The stream is for 72 hours and features a line-up of over 100 artists & DJs from over 20 countries, all contributing with exclusive sets & performances to help raise funds for the current COVID-19 crisis in India.

To donate visit – https://boxout.fm/fundraiser The page will be live till 19th May.

All proceeds from the audio-only broadcast will be donated to GiveIndia, a not-for-profit organisation actively working across India to help COVID-19 patients, their families and healthcare workers at this time of extreme crisis.

Check out the full line up below

Update: The conversation was part of the latest episode of the Horns Up podcast. Tune in below.

Now Playing – August 2014

It has been a while since I posted here thanks to my day job,  and I’m resuming with a new feature that I’d like to kick off. I first saw it on Milliblog where is it called “Top recent listens” and today, I decide to finally get it done. Since I listen to a lot of music (Indian and International bands), I thought of featuring a few bands on the blog that I really enjoying without interviewing them. This is going to be a monthly feature (if work permits) from now onwards.

Here is what I have been listening to this month.

Metal

Dying Embrace/Dusk – “Through corridors of dead centuries”

Two of the oldest extreme metal bands from South Asia have come together on this long awaited  release by Cyclopean Eye Productions. The Dying Embrace (India) side features new material from them in over a decade. Being a fan of the “Doom” avatar of Dusk (Pakistan), I really enjoyed their side of the split. This is death/doom metal recommended for those who preferred metal that sounds “raw”. Read my interview with Dusk here.

 

 

Demonic Resurrection – The Demon King

Demonic Resurrection from Bombay are one of India’s most popular metal band. I did a story on them recently for the BC/MC zine. Their latest album “The Demon King” which released last month is a story about Good and Evil and how Evil triumphs. Each song on the album tells the story from a different character’s perspective. I feel this is their best album as yet, in terms of songwriting and production.  After their appearance at Wacken Open Air earlier this month and their UK tour last month, they ought to be playing gigs across India in support of the album.

 

The Down Troddence – “How Are You? We Are Fine, Thank You”

The Down Troddence from Bangalore took the Rolling Stone Metal Awards by storm in June by winning 8 awards and also putting up a great performance. This album released in January and I only heard it much later in March, since then it’s been on heavy rotation. The album has a good mix of Indian melody and aggression. Definitely a band to keep an eye out for in the future.

 

Animals As Leaders – Joy of Motion

The latest album from Animals As Leaders is one of my favourite albums of the year. I have been listening to the album constantly ever since it released.  “Another Year” is a stand out song. Tosin Abasi, Javier Reyes and Matt Garstka have released a masterpiece that will be very hard for anyone to top this year.

 

Non – metal

Until we last – Earthgazing

In the past couple of years, there has been a surge in the number of post-rock bands in India. One of the best bands among them are Until We Last from Bangalore . Earlier this month they put out their first release “Earthgazing” and it sounds great. A short release of just 4 songs,  I was left wanting for more; looking forward to a full length released from them soon.

 

The Supersonics – Heads up

The Supersonics from Kolkata are one of my favourite Indian rock bands. I have been waiting for the release of their new album since they got back together in mid-2012 after a short break up. After the first couple of listens, I was not disappointed at all. My favourite track is “Strawberry“, can’t help singing along to their chorus. The album is 10 tracks of straight up rock and roll. Easily one of the Top 10 releases by an Indian band this year.

 

Dying Embrace/Dusk – “Through corridors of dead centuries” is available from Cyclopean Eye Productions

Demonic Resurrection – The Demon King is available in stores across India. 

The Down Troddence – “How Are You? We Are Fine, Thank You” and The Supersonics – Heads Up are available from OkListen.com

#togetheratrazz

Nh7 organized one of the best gigs I have been to this year, Nh7 weekender announcer party. What made the gigs special was that it was the first at Razzberry Rhine in 4 years.

I have great memories of attending gigs at Razz 5-6 years ago – Making friends with people I fought with on message boards/forums, hanging out in the parking lot and doing a lot of things that cannot be mentioned here.

The first day was a jam session curated by Warren mendonsa (Zero, Blackstratblues). The highlights of the set for me were Vishwesh (Scribe) covering Limp Bizkit “Break Stuff” and Sid Basrur covering Zero”Psp 12″. Prior to the start of the gig, a documentary of the Nh7 weekender 2010 was screened. I missed the screening as I was catching up with friends, one who came from Chandigarh for the gig.

The second day had a brootal line up – Godess Gagged, Demonic Resurrection, Bhayanak Maut and Scribe. I reached late and missed the set by Godess Gagged. Demonic Resurrection played a few songs from “A Darkness Descends”, the album which was released at Razz in 2005. Bhayanak Maut got the moshpits going with songs from their latest release “Metasis”. Scribe brought the night to an end with their set of “Bollywood-core”.

It was a great 2 days. I woke up the next morning with a  strained knee and bruises on my arms, its been a while since I was in the moshpit.

I heard that there might be a another gig at Razz this month, really looking forward to it.

Indianrockmp3.com turns 3

A few days ago Indianrockmp3.com completed 3 years. Started as a blog by Santhosh Lobo, a Indian based in Kuwait it is now a website with daily updates by Indian rock and metal enthusiasts from around the country. More about the origins of the website and its growth  in this interview with Santhosh

I got involved with Indianrockmp3.com around a year ago after being a daily reader for a couple years. During this time I have interviewed and reviewed the “Rawkstars” of India. Some people at gigs now recognize me as “the guy who writes for Indianrockmp3”

Check out Volume II of the annual Indiean compilation featuring 9 kick ass tracks.

Looking forward to another year of Indiean music.

Sandwash – Master Blaster Hole

Anyone who has been involved with the music scene in UAE in the past decade has heard the “groovecore” band Sandwash. I first saw them live at a small café in Abu Dhabi in 2002. After working on their album for close to 3 years, they finally released “Master Blaster Hole” in November last year.

The songs on the album are about different experiences one goes through as an adolescent. “Hey Hey Hey” which first appeared on the Ampulance compilation Vol. 2 (Anyone remember it?) in 2008, sounds a lot better. Fan favourites “If you open it up” and “Maria” which were on their earlier demos also benefit due to better production. “Black Gold” is a song about Dubai/UAE I suspect. There is also a song about growing up, “Meaning of Life”. My favorite song off the album is “October”, which is about moving and leaving a significant other behind. Micheal Fillon is a good song writer and also a story teller. Read the stories behind some of the songs here

Sandwash have matured from the “punk” band that I saw in 2002. The album sounds great thanks to Kiran Sequira and Milton Kyvernities, who mixed and mastered the album respectively. After hearing this songs live for some time now and now finally on Cd, I’m really looking forward to a new album by Sandwash. Hope they don’t keep us waiting for too long.

Here is the video to their track “Alabaster”

You can listen to snippets from the album below

If you like what you hear head out to Virgin Megastore and pick up a copy of the album.

Mid March Updates

Just realised its already the mid of the month so time for some updates.

One of the interview I did is now online, it was with Ameeth Thomas frontman of the Indian Rock band Junkyard Groove . The rest of the interviews will be online in the coming days.

I’ve also decided to add my concert write ups here since I’ve been fortunate enough to attend some really awesome concerts in the past few years. Heres one of the concert write ups I did that is online, Demonic Resurrection Live at Brutal Assault Lots more to come soon.

Up next is a couple of album reviews from UAE based bands…..

Updates for February…

So here are the reviews as promised in my previous post. The past couple of months have been productive due to more free time thanks to unemployment.

As I mentioned earlier I got quite a few cds from Indian bands, I will be reviewing them for the next month or so. The first few reviews I did are, Amogh Symphony – The Quantam Hack Code – second album from this genius from India. It was a bit hard to review this album as there is so much going on in it. Shades of Retribution – Xongram – Pretty cool debut album from this Assamese Death Metal band. Skrypt – Discord – Debut release by a prog/thrash metal band from my dad’s home town of Hyderabad.

I have also started writing for theunderground.in. I will trying to review and interbiew mainly international bands for the site. The first review I wrote was of, Preludium – Impending Hostility, a death metal band from Poland. It is the second release of Diabolical Conquest Records,a new label from India. Heres an Interview with Kunal, the owner of the label on Indiarockmp3.com that I contributed to. The interview turned out pretty good and I really enjoyed reading some of Kunals replies.

In the past month, I also worked on questions for interviews with a few bands, one of them is a favourite of mine so I am really looking forwards to how that interview turns out. Will post link to the interview hopefully in the next update.

Finally the Trendcrusher Podcast is back again, this time the focus will be on bands from all over the world not only UAE. More details about it here. I am really happy with the way it has turned out. Cannot wait to start working on the next few episodes.

More updates as it happens…