Review Summary: The start of something new...or is it?
Kraken is one of the two intriguing ongoing projects of guitarist Moses Koul—the other being an alternative pop/rock band called MOSKO—and has been kicking around in New Delhi for a couple of years. However, despite both of his projects having built up a fair amount of popularity and sizeable fanbases across the country, there has been precious little recorded music to show for Koul's efforts. In 2014, Kraken released a single on soundcloud entitled "Dance Jane Dance", but it has taken nearly four years for Kraken to actually release an album...and it's an EP. Between the release of "Dance Jane Dance" and
Lush, Kraken has evolved a fair amount and the direction of the band has changed quite significantly. What started off as a techy progressive metal band, heavily indebted to the likes of SikTh and Periphery, has softened its edges considerably. Now they're playing up their affinity for the pop-inflected soaring vocals of Dance Gavin Dance—offset by the frenetic rapped harsh vocals of SikTh—married to a hyperactive instrumental attack that's impressively technical while dialing back significantly on the aggression,
a la Chon and Polyphia.
The resulting effort has a fair amount of charm. There are hooks galore from both vocalists—Shagun Trisal on cleans and Vipul Verma providing the harshes—as well as from the guitar-playing of Koul. Those hooks may prove too twee and saccharine for some, just like the awful cutesy song-titles, but the success of Polyphia has proven that there is definitely a market for pop idioms in a technical metal context. The only problem with this extremely busy gonzo pop approach is that the songs all too often blend into each other a little too much because they hit most of the same notes in every song. This is fine when it's intentional—like the recurring hook that Koul plays throughout the album—but it makes the album feel a tad repetitive. The saving grace is that, considering the EP's brief length and how busy each individual song is, the repetition isn't overwhelming.
Overall, this is an impressive first effort from the band. However, one of the persistent problems with the Indian metal scene is that of the "one-and-done". A talented group of musicians get together in high school or college. They'll play the college competition scene for a few years. They'll build up a fanbase among young adults across the country. They'll record a single album. They'll playing music festivals across the country for a few years after that album. Then they'll disappear into their regular lives, jobs and families, sometimes never to be heard from again. All because heavy music just doesn't pay the bills.
Lush proves to be a fine spiritual and evolutionary successor to the similarly impressive one-off 2011 release
Resurfaces by Goddess Gagged, which broke up soon after the release and now provides 40% of the lineup of Skyharbor. Only time will tell if Kraken can build on this album, or if I'll instead be writing about one of their spiritual successors in about five years.
