VEIL OF MAYA INDIA TOUR ANNOUNCED!

American metal band Veil of Maya will be making their debut in India in January 2018. According to an announcement on entertainment company Bohemian Live's social media, the band will be playing a four-city tour from 10th - 14th January 2018. The cities include New Delhi, Chennai (IITM Saarang to be confirmed), Guwahati and Mumbai.

Terrific news! Dj0ntboys, jump! I've been waiting to watch Veil of Maya since I was a kid, hoping I'd one day successfully host an Indian edition of Euroblast and get them down but hey, I don't need to do that anymore because fuck, have you seen the amount of international acts coming down to India in the next 4 months!? Out of that 3 of them have played Euroblast before! Insane scenes.

Watch Veil of Maya in your city, dates below:

Promoters Bohemian Live have produced Cultfest in the past, bringing down death metal giants Cannibal Corpse and deathcore band Suicide Silence to India in 2015. On speaking to co-founder Amarjeet Singha about doing a tour over a one-day concert, he said, "We had never done an India tour before so we wanted to do that. Also, it makes better financial sense than doing a one off show. I guess this is the only way forward (3-4 city tours at least) where it makes sense to both band and promoter."

Our promoters are as geared up as all of you. Team member Suhas Vk, when asked about how he's feeling, said, "I'm very excited for this gig! I've been a huge fan of the band even more since Matriarch and I'm looking forward to their next release 'False Idol' due this 20/10." Amarjeet added, "Really excited to have a band like Veil OF Maya onboard for our first tour, and it will definitely be a treat for the Indian modern metal fans!"

Tickets for the event have already been announced along with links for each city except Chennai. The early bird tickets for Antisocial dates (Delhi and Mumbai) are priced at INR 1299 and the Guwahati ticket at INR 999.

Get concert tickets and watch Veil of Maya live for the first time here:
Delhi |  Mumbai | Guwahati

Please note that tickets can be purchased exclusively at Instamojo from the above links only.

Follow Bohemian Live on Facebook for updates. See you at the gig!

HAVE YOU HEARD THIS? (CHAPTER 2)

Hello hi! I'm back. 

Here's a list of some nice Indian Metal bands you may or may not have heard. I've broken up the list into three parts, so for now enjoy, thank me later. I'm really excited to share a bunch of sick bands to you and I hope to do so more regularly. There's definitely no lack of metal music in India!

 1. Tangents 
Progressive Metal from Bangalore

2. Plague Throat
Death Metal from Shillong

3. Sycorax Death Metal from Darjeeling

4. Spine Break
Rap / Nu Metal from Solan, Himachal Pradesh

5. All Seeing Eye
Tech Death Metal from Bangalore

6. If Hope Dies
Progressive Metal from Darjeeling

- - - - - - - -

Discover new bands every now and then! Follow Metalsphere on Facebook and watch out for interviews, videos and more news.

GODDESS GAGGED IS BACK!

This may be very exciting news for many of you.

Mumbai band Goddess Gagged returns after a hiatus of over a year. The band will be kicking things off again with the 2 Stroke Tour, courtesy Mr. Sarmaaah of BlueTree, who has been doing a fantastic job in the Indie scene over the past 2-3 months.

The band is scheduled to play a total of 7 cities this August-September. Gloomy weather and indoor gigs are a very sexual thing in general. GG will be playing with a bunch of bands from the respective touring cities like What Escapes Me, Dossers Urge, Lucid Recess, Dark Carnage, Kraken, Soul Inclination, Tails on Fire, Diarchy, Gumbal and Ferry Tales.

Below are the tour dates with the respective venues:

Date	City	Venue	Along with
26th Aug	Kolkata	Jamsteady, Princeton Club	What Escapes Me
27th Aug	Shillong	Cloud 9 - Resto Lounge	Dossers Urge
28th Aug	Guwahati	Terra Mayaa	Lucid Recess & Dark Carnage
31st Aug	New Delhi	antiSOCIAL HKV	Kraken & Soul Inclination
2nd Sep	Pune	The High Spirits	-
3rd Sep	Bangalore	The Humming Tree	Tails on Fire & Diarchy
4th Sep	Mumbai	antiSOCIAL, Khar	Gumbal & Ferry Tales

You can visit the event page on Facebook by clicking HERE. Tickets will be available on Insider, so keep an eye out for details.

__________

Goddess Gagged is:

Siddharth Basrur - Vocals

Jeremy D'souza - Drums

Arman Menzies - Guitar

Devesh Dayal - Guitar

Krishna Jhaveri - Bass guitar

HAVE YOU HEARD THIS? (CHAPTER ONE)

Here's some music for all of you to savour. If you have heard all of these songs, great! You, sir, are up-to-date! If you haven't, then may this serve as your guide to some fine Indian metal.

Most of these bands are in the heavy, groove and progressive space.

Bhayanak Maut - Now, Creation. Forever, Destruction.
Mumbai

(from their second studio album 'Man', released in 2014)




Scribe - Cops Cops (Cops Cops)
Mumbai

(from 2nd studio album 'Hail Mogambo' released in 2014)





Kraken - Dance Jane Dance
Delhi

Colossal Figures - Korotkov Core
Delhi

(off their debut album 'Clockwork Dilation' released in 2014)

Escher's Knot - The Grand Design 
Bangalore




Abraxas - Deviation
Pune




Noiseware - Flicker 
Pune




The Minerva Conduct - End Creation 
Mumbai




Pangea - This is NG Taking.
Mumbai




Aberrant - Collateral Damage
Shillong

(from self-titled EP released in 2014)




Providence - Dante
Mumbai




Feeding in Atlantis - The Firefly
Goa



Chronic Xorn - The Great Human Failure
Kolkata




Heretic - Thoughts
Cochin

(off their debut album 'Words to Epilogues' released in 2012)



Watch out for more!

INTERVIEW WITH ORION (MUMBAI) - PROGRESSIVE DEATH METAL BAND

Orion is a four-piece progressive death metal band from Mumbai. They've been playing a few gigs here and there, been composing music and they're rising real fast. I remember playing a few gigs with these guys (in my Chronic Phobia days) so we go waaay back. My brother (Pritesh) later joined the band on drums, after which they released their EP 'On the Banks of Rubicon' in 2012, and have been on the rise ever since. These are some of the sweetest, sappiest and asshole-ist metalheads I have met. Travelling with them, I know they're absolutely fun to be around!

Orion also recently launched their CDs in jewel cases and t-shirts for 'On The Banks of Rubicon' through label Transcending Obscurity. T-shirts are available for Rs. 600/- and CDs for Rs. 150/-
You can also digitally download the album from HERE.

As Kunal Choksi (Transcending Obscurity) said, "Orion's debut release 'On the Banks of Rubicon' is a masterful album with pulsating energy, memorable riffing and catchy hooks masking the complexity of the music. The music has shades of melody counterbalanced by aggression and growls, a perfect balance for music that can only be justified with the tag of Progressive Death Metal."

Here's a small but detailed interview I did with them. Check it out!

Your favourite food.
Orion: Anything served with beer.

Q. A brief history of the band
We've been around for a while now. Had a few line up changes, that lead to a lot of soul searching and sound searching. Finally we believe we've found what makes us Orion, both in our music and mindset. We released our first EP in 2012 and, things have only gotten bigger since then. We're progressive death metal, so that gives us the freedom to tilt towards any direction, music-wise. We have a simple thumb rule, if it's epically unexpected, it goes on the album!

Orion is (left to right) Pritesh Prabhune (drums), Ashwin Kulkarni (guitars), Vigneshkumar Venkatraman (Vocals, guitars) and Anshuman Bhattacharya (bass, backing vocals)

Q. How has your journey been so far?
Rough in patches. Although since the album launch, it's only gotten better. The past few years, according to us, have been preparation to become the band that people know us to be today. Hopefully it only gets better from here because well, that's the plan.

Q. What has the band been doing of late? (gigs, composing, recording)
We just finished a semi-India tour of sorts. Starting with playing the WACKEN METAL BATTLE India finals in Bangalore, we played at Hyderabad, Jaipur and Pune. We played Mumbai also (Thunderstorm) recently. Now we're taking some time off to work further on our upcoming album which we intend to launch sometime early next year. Our first t-shirt is out, hope you'll have gotten yours already.

Q. How was your experience at the Wacken Metal battle this year?
Epic. It was a huge boost for us. Playing with the best bands from around the country was one hell of an experience. Plague Throat deserved to win it. We're already gearing up and pushing ourselves harder to be the ones next year.

Here's a video of Orion's trip to the Wacken Metal Battle national finals in Bangalore! 




Q. Something we should expect coming our way from you any time soon?
So in the near future fans can expect some single releases and a lot more shows.

 Q. Your favourite Indian bands
Apart from the big 4 that is Bhayanak Maut, Scribe, Demonic Resurrection and Devoid, we love Gutslit, Eccentric Pendulum, Providence, Zygnema, Albatross, The Down Troddence, Anthracite and Plague Throat.

Q. Your favourite international bands
Everyone from Opeth, Meshuggah, Veil of Maya, Karnivool, Alter Bridge, Whitechapel, Metallica.... This list has no end.

9. A message to all your fans..
We just make the music. You  make the scene. So keep coming for shows and keep growing metal here. Thank you for the support you've shown us so far! Also dump ice in your drink, not on your head. Just fucking donate. \m/


You can find Orion all over!
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Soundcloud

Listen to their song 'Oh Sweet Ebullition!' right here!

\m/ 

THE FREAK GUITAR CAMP BY MATTIAS EKLUNDH, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN INDIA!

For the first time, guitar Guru and the creatively insane Mattias Ia Eklundh, frontman of Swedish progressive metal band Freak Kitchen, brings the Freak Guitar Camp from Sweden to India! Presented by BAJAAO, the Freak Guitar Camp is a week-long program for guitar players which will take place from the 13th – 19th of October, 2014 at Jal Srushti Island Resort in Mulshi, a serene location situated a few kilometers from Pune.

Here’s a video Mattias made for Freak Guitar Camp India:

Mattias is widely known for his unique style of guitar playing and song-writing. After years of learning, knowledge-sharing and patience, Mattias will now bring down the Freak Guitar Camp from Sweden to India. The Guru has always had a soft corner for India, Indian music and Indian musicians. This time, he will share his bit with us in our very own country! During the camp, Mattias will sink his teeth into odd time signatures, tons of poly rhythm techniques, licks and tricks to spare, how to make a guitar sound anything but a guitar, song writing process tips and talk about how to use synthetic modes and unorthodox scales.

The course fee is Rs.43,000/-. All candidates have to do is carry their instruments. Besides all the lessons and fun activities, the registration fee will include all the course material, luxurious beds, nutritious and lip smacking meals cooked by the Jal shrushti resort cooks.

 Here's a look at the camping spot Jal Srushti. Uffff. 

Take it from people who’ve attended the Freak Guitar Camp before. Mangesh Gandhi, frontman of Mumbai-based Hindi progressive rock band ‘Coshish’ shared his experience. He attended the 2011 camp in Sweden. “The Freak Guitar Camp is the best experience I had as a guitar player. IA is simply amazing and I basked in his awesomeness for a week in the Swedish woods. Beware, the musicality quotient takes a massive leap and might turn you into a musical zombie by the end of the week” he said.

Sidharth Kadadi, guitar player of Mumbai power groove metal band Zygnema said, "Freak Guitar Camp is truly a surreal experience, a must for all guitar players. Mattias is a living genius and he knows how to condition his campers. I learned a lot under IA's guidance and am looking forward to be a part of this again. You have to be a part of it to experience it. As our guru says -Once a camper, always a camper"

For registrations and further details, visit the official Freak Guitar Camp India website: http://www.freakguitarcamp.in/

Here's the official Freak Guitar Camp India Facebook page
Here's the event page for interested guitar players.
Mattias Eklundh
Freak Kitchen on Facebook

Here’s a link to the official video of Freak Kitchen’s ‘Teargas Jazz’ made in India.

\m/

THE ROLLING STONE METAL AWARDS PLAYLIST

These are the nominees for the Rolling Stone Metal Awards 2014.
Voting for best song, best album and best band (Popular choice) is open here on their event page, so RSVP too.


Cosmic Infusion
6 nominations
Best band
Best album 'Cosmic Infusion'
Best song - Burial of Thy Own
Best vocalist - Sushan Shetty
Best guitar player - Amnish Lohire
Keyboardist - Sushan Shetty

Facebook

For the full song, visit their Bandcamp page, the embed link wasn't working.
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Gutslit 
6 nominations
Best band
Best album 'Skewered in the Sewer'
Best vocalist - Aditya Barve
Best guitar player - Dynell Bangera
Best drummer - Aaron Pinto
Best bass player - Gurdip Singh Narang

Facebook

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Reptilian Death
7 nominations
Best band
Best album 'The Dawn of Consummation and Emergence'
Best song - O
Best vocalist - Vinay Venkatesh
Best guitar player - Sahil Makhija
Best drummer - Sahil Makhija
Best bass player - Ashwin Shriyan

Facebook


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Reverrse Polarity
4 nominations
Best band
Best album 'Reverrse Polarity'
Best song - Cross Poly Nation
Best drummer - Gautam Deb

Facebook


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The Down Troddence
6 nominations
Best band
Best album 'How are You? We are Fine, Thank you'
Best song - Nagavalli
Best guitar player - Varun Raj
Best drummer - Ganesh Radhakrishnan
Best keyboard player - Sushin Shyam

Facebook


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Undying Inc
4 nominations
Best song - Ironclad
Best vocalist - Shashank Bhatnagar
Best drummer - Nishant Hagjer
Best bass player - Reuben Bhattacharya

Facebook

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Zygnema
4 nominations
Best song- Shell Broken Hell Loose
Best vocalist - Jimmy Bhore
Best guitar player - Sidharth Kadadi
Best drummer - Mayank Sharma

Facebook

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Theorized 
1 nomination
 Best bass player - Sankalp Narayanan

Facebook


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When Stories End 
1 nomination
Best bass player - Gaurav Roka

Facebook


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Dark Helm
1 nomination
Best keyboard player - Aniketh Shankar

Facebook


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Lunatic Fringe
1 nomination
Best keyboard player - Gaurav Dutta

Facebook


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Slain 
1 nomination
Best keyboard player - Jonathan Wesley

Facebook

_________________________________________________________________________________



Rolling Stone India
Rolling Stone Metal Awards


\m/ May the best musicians win! \m/

GUITAR PLAYER WEEK: KESHAV DHAR (SKYHARBOR)

Keshav Dhar can easily be named one of the pioneers of modern metal in India. Taking his solo project 'Hydrodjent' out of the bedroom and staging one very sought-after modern progressive outfit 'Skyharbor', this man is more than just a guitar player. Having aboard Dan Tompkins (ex-TesseracT), and also drummer Anup Sastry (Jeff Loomis, Intervals) Skyharbor's lineup is now across three continents!

The interview is with the genius behind 'Dots' and 'Celestial', brought to you by the very own me! (ikr?!) Here's an interview many of you might be eager to read. Go ahead, have a look, I'm sure there's something new and unique with every guitar player, especially when it comes to composing music!

Don't forget to vote for Skyharbor at the Metal Hammer Golden Gods in the 'Global Metal' category right HERE.

Photo credits: Pixel Matrix

Full name and age
Keshav Anand Dhar, 27


What is your favourite dish/cuisine?
Indian: Prawn Chettinad curry, Non-Indian: Sushi or Pho


Kindly tell us about all your precious gear! (guitars, processors, software)
I currently have four guitars. My main writing guitar is a gorgeous Mayones Regius custom 6 string. I also have my trusty old Ibanez SZ2020, which still sees a fair bit of use and I absolutely love writing on it. I also have a PRS Custom 24 7 String which I use live. I rarely write songs with it though as I’ve always been a 6 string player at heart. In addition to this I have an Ovation acoustic which I don’t play very often but it’s recently seen a fair bit of use.

My 'rig' at the moment is quite simple, I've never been into pedals and endless knob tweaking, I just like to dial in sounds quickly and jam, and my Fractal Axe-FX II does this job perfectly! The amp modelling is second to none, it's incredibly versatile and responsive to my playing, and the effects are gorgeous. It's also completely midi controllable, so when playing live all my patch changes happen automatically in sync with the click tracks, which is really cool. All I need to do literally is play!

In the studio, I record, edit and mix between Cubase 7 and Pro Tools 10. I've been a Cubase user pretty much ever since I started recording many years ago, and I know it like the back of my hand now. I've started using Pro Tools a little more of late just because it's industry standard and clients send me a lot of PT session files for mixing, but I mostly just consolidate the files in there and bounce them out into Cubase again haha.

How long have you been playing guitar?
About 11 years or so now.


What got you into playing guitar?
Well I started playing guitar casually because I wanted to be able to play Metallica songs. Haha.
But I really got serious about it after watching Joint Family play live in Delhi at the 'Numero Uno Rock Out' festival in 2005. That show really fired me up. It was like, fuck! THIS is what I want to do!


Have you learned to read music as well, or do you just play by ear?
I had 10 years of piano lessons so I can read sheet music, but ever since I started playing guitar I have never ever looked at sheet music. I actually got so fed up of the bullshit that piano lessons involved – reading music, zero room for self expression, so regimented and boring – that when I started playing guitar, I sort of swore to myself that I would only ever play by instinct and only do what sounded good to me, theory be damned.


Electric vs. acoustic. What do you prefer?
I am a terrible acoustic player, and a great many of the songs I write depend heavily on effects, delays/reverbs/choruses/wahs/phasers etc, so electric for sure haha.

Skyharbor live at Moscow (2013)

What thought goes into riff construction/is there any particular pattern you follow to make riffs?
I have a really weird approach to writing riffs. I’m not really that good of a guitar player from a technical standpoint, so when ideas come to mind I immediately record myself bullshitting through it – basically whatever my fingers are able to interpret of the idea in my head. Then I pick apart the notes, phrases, licks etc, and keep what I like and discard little bits in the middle.
Then I fill in those gaps in the middle one by one. Often, I come up with a bunch of different riffs which I have no idea what to do with. Then just for fuck’s sake, I chop them up and paste parts of different riffs together to form new riffs. Hahaha. It’s really weird, and I wouldn’t recommend anyone else do this unless it feels natural to them. It’s just that I started recording and mixing before I started seriously playing guitar, so the computer and the DAW has always been an integral part of my process. It works for me.


What music projects are you currently a part of, besides Skyharbor?
I’m part of White Moth Black Butterfly which is an experimental sort of proggy rock project I have with Dan (Skyharbor singer). I also write music with my old buddies in Another Vertigo Rush, in the background. Apart from that, not much really – Skyharbor keeps me really busy most of the time when I’m not producing.


Do you have a day job? What is it that you do? 
Yes! I have my studio Illusion Audio, where I record, produce and mix bands and also generally do any and all music production related projects that come my way. Apart from working with bands which forms the bulk of my work, I also score for documentary films and ad films from time to time, although I always come back to working with bands. It’s what connects the most with me.


Your favourite musicians (Indian)
I’m guessing it wouldn’t be fair to name my own band members…

Guitar: Vishal J. Singh/Prashant Shah
Bass: Nikhil Rufus
Drums: Jivraj Singh/Jai Row Kavi
Vocals: Sunneith Revankar/Siddharth Basrur


Your favourite musicians (international)

Guitar: Ben Sharp
Bass: Jon Stockman
Drums: Steve Judd
Vocals: Ian Kenny/Devin Townsend


Can we expect a release from your band(s) any time soon?
Yes definitely – Skyharbor is wrapping up recording our second album and it’s off to mixing soon. There’s a pretty big PR campaign that will surround this release, so it won’t be before this fall, but it will definitely be this year. Probably around October or November.


Whom do you look up to, as a musician and a band?
Ben Sharp and Devin Townsend are my heroes!


A message to all your fans (hello ladies!)
Thank you all for the love and support through the years – we’ve got a lot of new music coming your way and we can't wait for you to hear the new album!


Visit Skyharbor on Facebook and Soundcloud
White Moth Black Butterfly on Facebook

Photo credits: NAD Visual Art

EXTREME ENDS: ALBATROSS IN VASAI AND PARADIGM SHIFT IN SOBO!

Vasai greeted Mumbai metal band Albatross and the other competitions bands very well! The other two metal bands playing the competition also had a mostpit and some headbanging, as you can see in this Narkasur video below:

Albatross and friends were pretty killer. The special shout-out no. 1 goes to Dinosaur Rajan, as aptly titled by my buddy Anshuman. Trust me, you'd Bark at the Moon after hearing this version with growling vocals. Sorry, I was too amazed to take a video!

But then, we also had the lovely voice of Sid Raveendran on 'Holy Diver' (Dio cover)



This video ahead was a random moment at the end of 'Night Crawler' (Judas Priest cover) with Sahil on vocals and all the friends jumping around on stage.

I didn't know Sushan of Cosmic Infusion could sing man!

And the one moment no one could forget was the crowd shouting 'Sahil Sahil Sahil!' and then an equally powerful 'Makhija Makhija', asking for the demonman to come on stage!

All in all, the gig was great fun and the crowd went mad!

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Mumbai's six-piece fusion/rock/progressive band Paradigm Shift judged the band competition at Grant Medical College's festival 'Astitva 2014' and had an opening band 'Tatva' before they set the stage on fire with a heavy performance. Of course, my favourites were played so I was happy.

The Sobo peeps really don't get it haan? Basically, after vocalist Kaushik made them realise their set doesn't involve ghazal listeners sitting in the back, a few scared and obedient kids got up from their seats and went ahead. :P

The gig ended with a good 40-50min set including their incredible cover of 'Roja'.

.
Tomorrow, gig update and band interview!

\m/

SOBO: South Bombay

NEWER INDIAN METAL BANDS YOU NEED TO HEAR

These are a few bands I've heard in the past four days.

TRIGGER

Trigger is a four-piece heavy/modern progressive band from Delhi. They came together in 2012 to make some groovy-ass shit. On speaking to vocalist Shourya Malhotra, I found out they'd played Blue Frog (Delhi) and Launchpad finals in the recent past. They are also hopefully looking at releasing a self-produced EP this year. They're angry, loud, raw and I'm sure they'd be a treat to watch, not only for modern progressive fans. Look out!

Catch them on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TriggerIndia

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NARKASUR

This four-piece thrash/groove metal band from Mumbai formed in May 2013. Going by the 'THRASH TILL DEATH' and 'POWER-ANGER-STRENGTH' signifying their music, these guys are to look out for at local band competitions. They've played quite a lot of competitions lately, winning NIFT Mumbai's Spectrum 2014 a few days ago. In other news, they're interested in Maggi, calling their drummer for jam and chai. 

Here is a link to their Reverbnation page, where they've got some demos up for a listen: 

http://www.reverbnation.com/narkasur

You can find them on Facebook here: 

https://www.facebook.com/narkasur

And DO NOT, I say do not fall for this deceiving YouTube result: 

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ARMAMENT

Armament is a four-piece extreme thrash metal outfit from Kolkata. They got together in 2011. Full-power and aggressive, I had the chance to catch these guys at Thrashfest earlier this month (Choksi is lying, it won't be the one and only.). These guys were fast, with some great riffing and heavy as fuck. 

This is a live audio recording from their rehearsal. Check it out.

Their Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/armament666

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SPECTION

A five-piece progressive/psychedelic band from Mumbai, they're IIT boys! Influenced mainly by Porcupine Tree and a slight Opeth vibe (which you will see when you listen to their song), they've been playing competitions here and there in the country, one being our most popular BITS-Pilani Goa's Searock.

They also recently played at 'The Great Gig in the Sky' at Tinga Tinga Bar (wow) in Bangalore last week.

Listen to them here: 

https://www.facebook.com/spection.band/app_204974879526524

And their Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/spection.band

More coming your way. I'd love to listen to something new. Bring it on!