India is becoming big on Metal, not only by being one of the must go places for every heavy band, but also by producing great Metal bands to the world like BLODYWOOD and KRYPTOS. And Indian metal is sometimes proudly influenced by their culture and you can usually feel the Indian touches in the compositions. In a country with 1.4 billion people, you didn’t even need to reach the global market with your music to survive. The country itself could make any artist rich and famous without minding the rest of the world, but their output can be so good that the rest of the world will notice anyway. The Bollywood movie industry is an example of exporting great talents like actor Shah Rukh Khan and actress Priyanka Chopra to Hollywood made movies. In the Metal scene we can notice a recent influx of bands from India and one of them is SABOTAGE (not to mix with the 90’s American band with the same name) with an early days traditional Thrash metal approach. SABOTAGE is a band that started 4 years ago with a nice debut EP called The Order Of Genocide, and now their are back with their second release Pishach (from the Sanskrit word ‘Pishacha’, meaning evil), an 8 tune album for our listening pleasure.

The album starts with the title song “Pishach”and I think I am going to love this. The evolving drum rhythm with some Indian percussion and heavy handed guitar chords prepares you for the ceremony that is about to start, and then, it ends. Why? I do not know. What I know is that I have been listening to a lot of records that add a kind of “instrumental part" to start the album that usually does not lead to anywhere. I will give it a pass on this one. The next tune is where the meat is (lamb meat to my Indian friends) and “Eye For An Eye” delivers. An energy that you can only find in the early thrash metal albums from METALLICA to TESTAMENT and everything else in between. Great and energetic tune to really start the album. We follow with “Sabotage” that is a self aware tune telling the listener who the band are and that they will kick your ass. Like MOTORHEAD with the song “Motorhead”, or MANOWAR with the song “Manowar”. It should be the first song of the album as it introduces the band.

The next one is “Love Undead” that starts with a church choral and some bells until the piercing guitars of Yash Pujari  and Cyril John Thomas invades the space and takes you to what sounds like a Metal song with nice touches of Punk rock. The musicianship is solid with great riffs and guitar solo work. Even some guttural vocal style is attempted by singer Anand Mulgund that has a more Punk style voice than Metal, and I am not complaining as it matches perfectly with the sound. This tune has a Youtube video worth checking. “Victory Or Valhalla” is next and it is another punch in the face. Great drumming from Malhar Bhanushali with some double bass madness and solid work from bass player Rahul Bhatt. The bass sounds really good on this mix and you can find the bass and the 2 guitars on completely different riffs dressing the song with all the accessories. We reach “Valley Of Death” and you also notice that the band drank a lot from the Bay Area Thrash metal from the 80’s and 90’s. The riff on this one has MEGADETH flavors all over it and I can almost hear the suffocating voice of Dave Mustaine.

We get closer to the end with “Melody of Betrayal '' and the listener will not feel bothered. Another energetic tune with great musicianship. The tunes are in good understandable English and this is to the credit of the singer and his vocal style.  We end our journey with “Demons In Paradise” that closes an album that is difficult to choose the favorite song. All of the songs are Thrash to the core and the performance is top notch. New bands devoted to the early Thrash era are popping all over the place. Another band to check within the same style is ERADIKATED. The production on Pishach is on a good level and you still get that lack of final polish in the sound that to my ears, is perfect for the style. SABOTAGE is a band to be watched as I believe their live performances might be killer. I do hope to see them live at some point in one of these festivals in the western world and check this album live.