Wow.

I don't think I've ever really heard much in the way of Metal to come out of India but after hearing DHWESHA I have developed something akin to a blood thirst for Indian Metal.  A style that I love and feel doesn't get enough usage in Metal is the beautiful, quasi-religious sounding eastern scales and tones that make NILE so unique.  They can be tricky to implement in Metal in a way that they sound organic and have a sense of purpose and place within the song.  I guess this is why there are barely any notable bands out there that do it, there are probably quite a few that have tried and failed miserably.  I fell hard in love with NILE when I first heard "Ruins", the epic guitar work made me soil myself an the expanse and spirituality of it all made me want to start referring to myself as Ammut and engage in eating the hearts of the unworthy.  This feeling has totally been replicated and it is just about all I  can do to write this instead of running into the moonlight hand in hand with Kali to fertilize new crops with a sea of fresh blood.

The album opens with "Sattva Bali" and may I just say now that I have no idea what any of the song titles or lyrics mean as they are all written in Kannada, one of the many tongues of India.  The opening gambit is a glorious guitar line tat pretty much tells you exactly what to expect for the next 45 minutes or so.   After this epic introduction the album settles into a nice familiar pace with face melting riffs being thrown out of the speakers and leaving a vaguely burnt smelling residue on the floor.  To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't normally get so excited by most of these riffs as they are pretty standard and follow the formula that was laid out in Death Metal a long time ago and remains king amongst the genre.

The thing that gets me hard about this band are the sections like the intro to song number three "Dhwesha".  These intricately crafted moments where you can hear culture and history pouring into something that is entirely modern and as far away from any kind of culture as you can get.  There is much of the standard pace and tone through the album, I wish I could understand the lyrics as I am sure they would add another level of meaning to it all.  For all I know, the songs could just be about eating pizza and watching reruns of Friends but somehow I doubt it.  Even though Google translate can only give me a few words from the lyrics, they all indicate my kind of dark, soul eating evil.  My favourite song on the album is by far the final song "Kapala Haara".  It reeks of the kind of atmosphere that the aforementioned NILE do so very well but  has a slightly different edge about it.  Whereas NILE specialise in a merciless wall  of sound that obliterates everything in its path, DHWESHA have something about them that gives these kind of songs a little more depth and leaves a little more  breathing room.

This album has successfully pounced onto my favourite Metal  albums of recent years and I am hoping that we may even see a UK tour in the future.  I guess I should probably start the sacrifices now...