Review Summary: More than two years since its release, Death Destruction Sermon stands tall as the first metal album from East India and one of the finest in the genre by an Indian band.
If you look at the growing metal scene in India, its quite different from the rest of the world, especially for someone who is a part of it. Even though there are truckloads of artists waking up to the scene, the major chunk of bands is still dependent on inspirations from western bands and recycled riffs & rhythms.
On one side are bands that are content with playing covers of artists they've been idolising since childhood (and even recording and distributing those covers). On the other side are bands efforting to compose original material. But on the downside, what might be different in the eyes of a musician has actually been done a hell lot of times by some other band(s) in the west. What's worse is that even for the Indian audiences, listening to an Indian band is more of a way to associate it with an international act and dismiss it with charges of plagiarism.
Amidst this perplexing state of affairs,
Chronic Xorn came up with
Death Destruction Sermon back in 2010. While bands were struggling to create music without any support of a record label or fan following, Chronic Xorn cracked a record deal with the label
Six Inch Nails. Coming to the EP, its powerful and crushing and indeed brings destruction! The album picks up pace after a smooth intro and destruction follows right from the second track. The vocals are essentially notable with considerable pitch variations ranging from mid range screams to high shrieks. The guitars blend different melodies with great accuracy, crushing riffs with rough time signatures are accompanied with melodic guitar solos creating an overall melodious yet heavy sound. The bass however is a wee bit low in the overall mix (pretty common in metal I believe) but the drums still manage to steal the show here. They are flashy with solid double bass work, interesting fills and some complex time signatures reminiscent of
mathcore. Infact, lately the band has clearly been drawing some influences from
Born Of Osiris as I found out in their live performances.
P.S More than two years since its release, Death Destruction Sermon stands tall as the first metal album from East India and one of the finest in the genre by an Indian band. Its definitely not a flawless release with its overall production leaving quite a bit of room for the whole mix to be a bit higher in terms of loudness and polishing (expected from a metalcore album) but the band is launching its full length album this year so I'm looking forward to that. As of now, i think this EP deserves a review here at Sputnik.
Recommended Track : Afraid of the unseen
