Weed..politics…metal…offense and all. Here’s an outerview of the members of Albatross (Anuraag, Sunny, Dipesh, Avaya and Diwas).

First question, tell us what the band is currently up to.

The band is up to what it is always up to. Swimming. Football. Weed. And of course… headbanging at Dipesh’s place. We’re working on songs for our soon-to-be recorded and released demo album. We’re taking our time with the songwriting process so that the end product will be something all of us will be happy with. When we hit the studio, we need to be sure that we’re producing the heaviest and meanest sounds possible. In short, we want to make this album every bit as hard-hitting and aggressive as we’re planning to. Things are moving slowly, but we’re happy with the work we’ve done so far. And are looking to make the new songs even better.
All of them: HARDCORE!!!

Okay great. So tell us what motivates you guys to write these sorts of songs?

Hmmmm… motivation. There’s so much we could say, but then this would turn into a porno horror movie so we’ll just stick to the basics. One of the major themes in all our songs is the frustration that comes from living in Nepal. Nepal is awesome and one of the best places in the world, but it has been so screwed over by the people here that it sucks. There were days when you could just walk around in Thamel smoking a joint, and no one said anything to you. Nepal was a place of peace and tranquility. Sure there weren’t any notable guitar shops or shopping centres around, but at least you could walk around for half an hour without some cop coming up to you and harassing you just because you have long hair or an earring.

Dipesh: Nepali cops suck. I think all of us are united in our hatred of cops. Stupid, uneducated, ball-less, cocksucking motherfuckers. Then you have your Maoists. Another sickening group of uneducated shits with too much power in their hands. They’re like children with guns. They make us sick with their unjustified claim of ‘fighting for freedom’. What a bunch of insane hypocrites! Then there are the people who have it so much worse than us. People who have lost whole families to the war of politics. It is enough to make you wonder what went wrong here. All of these changes have affected us and changed our lives, for the worse. We try to make our songs reflect all of this.

Diwas: And of course, there’s the government. There is a game being played in Nepal. And of course, we are the pawns. We try to write through personal experience. There’s no technique or special skill involved. All that is just pretentious crap. We just pick up our instruments, play what we feel… inspired what we feel. Oh yes, almost forgot: WEED!

Let’s keep this weed thing aside. Just how do you guys go about composing any song? Any theory?

Mostly it’s an on-the-spot thing. Of course, we’ll have some basic riff planned out, which we’ll jam over. And then we usually play by ear and see where the song goes. For some songs, it’s just been like an explosion.

Sunny: ‘Payback’s a Bitch’, happened in two days. We worked out all the music in one day, and then we jammed with Anuraag and the song came together almost instantly.

Avaya: And then sometimes, we’ve had to come back and rewrite and edit and make changes so the song sounds better. With ‘Break Your Face’ we changed the whole structure of the verse after we’d been playing that song for nearly a month. There’s no rules at all. We just go by ear, time, day and moment. There are some songs that we’re planning to do on the basis of just the title that we’ve come up with. Now, we’ll try and make music that will live up to how each of us feels to the lyrics. We have lot of riffs in mind, and are looking for the right lyrics to fit the song. It’s always an impromptu process.

Tell us about the recording of these 2 songs. And will u guys will ever do ‘Broke17′ and ‘Hellskitchen’ with Anuraag on vocals?

Dipesh: Recording our first two songs was great. Of course, we were really young then, and we didn’t have a lot of experience, but it went great and we came through it all feeling very happy about ourselves and our band.

Sunny: I remember that when we recorded ‘Broke 17′, the music scene in Nepal was so different. The only things people listened to were Hotel California and Sweet Child O’ Mine and it felt good to play something different and original. How we got the chance to record ‘Broke 17′ is pretty exciting as well. We had been jamming at Bamboo’s Club in Thamel when we performed ‘Broke 17′. Little did we know, Iman Shah (who owns the Sacred Soundz Studio) was also in the audience, and after the show, he came up to us and asked us if we wanted to record the song for free.

Dipesh: Who would have said ‘no’? Sacred Soundz was great. The studio was really cool, and Iman Shah is one hell of a guy!

Sunny: That man is made for music. He would give us all sorts of suggestions and even go through to let us know what they sounded like, so we could choose for ourselves.

Avaya: And very encouraging. He used to cheer us on and always let us know when we sounded great, and when we sounded bad. Except that with him behind the table, we hardly ever sounded bad.

And then, recording ‘hellskitchen’ was another different experience. The song was composed just three days before we entered the studio. We had a new vocalist, and our music style had somewhat changed. So we had a different approach to this track than the funky vibe we felt on ‘Broke 17′. We wanted a darker, heavier feel to it, but little did we know what Studio 2000 had in store for us.

Dipesh, Sunny and Avaya: STUDIO 2000 SUCKS!!!

As for doing these songs with Anuraag, we haven’t really thought about that.

Now time for a little history… there have been 3 vocalists for the band. How will you compare each three with another ?

( Anurag be silent. ) Nitesh was our first vocalist and he was a lot of fun to work with. The great thing about him was his devotion to the band and the hard work that he put into it. He had great showmanship and rapped really well. Avaya: We’d been friends for a really long time, so jamming with him felt really comfortable and we all gelled together very well. However, we wanted to go beyond funk, and that’s we decided to have Sirish Dali sing for us after a few sessions with him.

Sirish was our second vocalist, and what can we say… Dali [Sirish] could SING. But he had to go to the US. What to do? What more can be said.

Anuraag is our latest vocalist, and he’s still around. He has great showmanship as well, and is really full of power. We’re having fun jamming with him and his offensive lyrics. Hahaha.

Anuraag: Um… er…

And yeah, anything you wanna say about the current issue of “cover songs” ?

The current ‘issue’ of cover songs is funny and really uncalled for. People say that it’s trendy to play covers and that makes us all go “what the fuck?”.

Anuraag: Playing covers is good clean fun. Of course, a band can’t survive on covers alone, but to diss a band because they play covers is the stupidest shit I have ever heard of.

Dipesh: Playing covers allows you to experiment and find your voice, and until you do, may you play covers. To hell with what the audience thinks.

Diwas: There are so many covers I still want to do. After a hard day spent wracking your brains and your fingers for new sounds and new notes, it feels good to relax with some good old covers.

Sunny: People were saying shit about us because we played a lot of covers and only a few people had any intelligent ideas. Most of it was just outrageous bullshit. We’re working on originals now, and it’s not even because of what those dickhead idiot motherfuckers said about us. We finally know what musical direction we want to take, and experiment with. And we would like to record an album before any other changes come up in the band’s lineup.
So fuck all those people who say shit about us. It takes balls to get up on a stage and play. So while we have the balls, we’ll just play whatever the fuck we want.

All of them: HARDCORE!!!

For me, the current line up is the best till now. You guys have anything further to say about it?

Well, we have had lots of time to play together and get a feel for our ranges and capabilities. We think that it is this fact that has brought about this musical tightness in the band. We believe we have always had great lineups that have always suited the band’s collective interest and musical vision. We just have a lot of time to play together right now.

What sort of influences do you guys share?

All of them: HARDCORE!!! Hahahaha.

We’ve really started getting into metal these days. We always liked thrash, but we never planned on taking Albatross down that brutal road of metal. These days, our influences have gone totally metal. Some of our favorite bands would be Corrosion of Conformity, Soulfly, Sepultura, Slayer and of course PAN-fucking-TERA. And then again, we also like Korn, System of a Down, Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers and all those great Seattle-based grunge bands. (You will be missed Layne!)

Anuraag: And then there’s Scary Spice. Man, she was a chick with balls. I wish she was still alive.

Sunny: She’s dead?

Diwas: We really like Aqua too.

Sunny: Aqua’s riffs!

Avaya: Aqua, Vengaboys… Good bands with awesome music.

Diwas: Someone should give them an award.

Avaya: Everyone should have at least one Vengaboys album.

Dipesh: Vengaboys have kickass drum patterns!

Anuraag: So tell me what you want what you really really want…

Sunny: What the fuck?

Ahem ahem ahem. Ok craps aside, how strongly are you guys influenced by Metal?

We eat metal, sleep metal and breathe metal.
All of them: But we smoke only marijuana.

Enough of WEED ! Alrite a tough question now, most of the early metal fans “disgust” the word nu-metal. They whine and complain about all these nu-metal bands destroying the real metal. I think this allegation is full of shit. Is metal that weak ? What do you think about this issue?

Metal isn’t that weak! STRONGER THAN ALL!!! A true metal fan doesn’t give a fuck about nu metal because nothing can break metal. Metal has been established, and nothing can change that. Nu metal is just a new form of music. You can either like it, or you can hate it, but it has nothing to do with metal. We like Korn, but we listen to them as Korn, and don’t try to label them with any genres. They’re one of a kind, and every single member in that band kicks ass. Then again, we fucking love Pantera and every single member in that band kicks ass as well. There’s no connection. Nu metal isn’t ruining metal! You just play what you want to play and fuck everything else.

Avaya: I wish people would get over nu metal and move on. So we guess that allegation is definitely full of shit.

How hard is it to be in a band..to stick around and survive?

Well, we’ve been around for over three years now. We don’t think it’s a question of surviving. It’s a question of whether you want to be in a band or not. We don’t think of ourselves as professionals or people on a mission. That’s shit. We’re just friends who love playing music together. It’s been great fun so far, and we know that we’ve got lots more to look forard to. If you like it, you’ll “survive”. If you’re not having fun, then you probably won’t.

Which has been your favourite gig till now, the one you guys will never forget?

Favorite gig? We don’t really have a favorite gig. We put equal efforts into all our practices, for all our gigs. Sometimes we’ve had great audiences, sometimes we’ve had assholes. But we’ve always had fun at all our concerts. There have been good performances and bad performances. But up to now, no favorites.

Ok, talking about nepali bands..which other bands do you guys like?

There are a lot of great Nepali bands. This whole new underground music scene in Nepal is great.

Anuraag: Proves that not all Nepalis sing about how their mayalus fucked them up by not replying to their letters.

We really like X-Mantra, Monkey Temple, 5th Grade Dropout (Rajesh Hamal Must Die !), Nastik and Looza. We have a lot of respect for Refused 13 and would really like to see them play live some day. It’s great that we’re all able to do this. Concerts happening, people headbanging… Hopefully, some day, we’ll all be able to push music up to a whole new level and give Nepali underground acts the attention they deserve.

Sunny: But we really don’t like the attitude that some Nepali bands have.

Dipesh: 1974 AD!

Sunny: It’s not about the music they play either. It’s their attitude.

Diwas: They act like they’re the fucking Black Sabbath of Nepali rock.

Avaya: We have had our set cut short for 1974 AD so many times. They actually sent the organizers to tell us to get off the stage.

Sunny: You should respect other bands. Even if you don’t like what they play. If you don’t like it, you can always leave.

Dipesh: But shove those useless crticisms about mommafucking and which guitarist sucks what, up your ass.

Hmm..I am sure they did that on Electric Circus gig… atti jhare act …and guys don’t forget to watch their latest video haha .. alrite, last question. How do u feel about the present situation in Nepal?

The present situation in Nepal is a mass of conflicting issues and problems. We all know that these problems are the result of a history of bad government and disorder. Most people follow half-formed ideals and believe in flawed concepts, and then there are those that would sell us all to make a profit, or build a new house. There are those that burn tires for no reason at all, and those that don red bandanas and blow up school buses because some asshole told him to do so. The same asshole who keeps his own family in another country, safe from the clutches of the very same disease he has infected the minds of the poor and stupid with. Maybe all this could have been averted if we had woken up to the evils of a corrupted government and a falsely worshipped monarchy, but we’ll never know now… will we?

INTERVIEW WITH NURAJ SHRESTHA (Nemesis)

Nuraj is the lead guitarist and vocalist for the band Nemesis (See our Featured Bands Section). Nuraj right now is in US for his studies and rest of the band members are still here in Kathmandu. Down here is the talk we had together over msn and emails… : umes

So how’s it going, with you there and the band here?

Well, like everything else, it has its good side and bad side. What’s bad is obvious – we can’t play together, which is the part that we really miss. The good thing is all of us have grown individually and musically. Ananda (Bass) played in a blues band (Ashes Nekhvam Band) professionally doing pub & restaurant gigs. Sooraz (Drums) has been studying Jazz drumming. Sakill (Rhythm) is doing great too. And I believe that I have found my true voice in guitar. Most important of all: I now have a clear idea on what direction our music is going to go towards.

How did you get into this kind of music, any particular reason?

I strongly believe in the notion of music as art and a vessel for self-expression. It shouldn’t just be pointless entertainment. It shouldn’t just be a bunch of nice sounding notes thrown together that doesn’t mean anything. Music should MEAN something.
I have experimented with different forms of music and I have chosen heavy music as my paint and canvas. I think I can express myself honestly with it.

Your early influences? What are you on these days?

I guess I started like everyone else by listening to bands like Gn’R and Def Leppard. I seriously got into music while listening to Black Sabbath, Metallica, Motorhead, Priest etc. I eventually got into more and more hardcore stuff. Unleased, Venom, Slayer, Sepultura etc.

Right now I’m listening to Slayer’s “God Hates Us All”, RATM, System of a Down, Slipknot etc.
I’m also very much into western classical music. I’m interested in early 1900 composers like Stravinsky and also atonal and minimalistic stuff. All of you should listen to Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre Du Printemps” or “Rite of Spring”. It’s as heavy and intense as any Slayer song.

Music obviously has evolved..esp rock..gone are the days of old style rock like Led Zep Deep Purple…so what do u think about the rock music, in general, changing the direction…?

Everything evolves. It’s the nature of things. If something is stagnant then it means it’s dead. So the new forms of metal that’s coming up shows that this music is evolving and that hopefully also means metal is alive and well.

So many people into metal are disgusted by the whole rap-metal thing but I choose not to judge.

How you see the situation..bands like Limp Bizkit Korn Slipknot mixing rap and metal…so that the real rock in dying out…

Like I said before, I don’t really condemn any type of music. It’s change dude!! And ANY change is better than NO change. Even though I’m not that much into hip-hop or rap or whatever, the bands you mentioned are more than Ok with me….. And no, real rock is not dying out. It is actually the opposite.

Do you think metal will rule forever?

Of course it will. Let’s say in the year 3012 AD, there’ll still be people pissed off about something, there’ll still be people unsatisfied about one thing or the other and this will find it’s way into music. It might not be called metal or it might not even sound like metal – but it’ll still have the same essence and spirit. Metal will have survived and metal will RULE.

Well let’s talk about Nemesis. How did this band start?

Nemesis started in the back benches of 11th grade somewhere in the money-grabbing 10+2 system in Kathmandu, around ’96 – I think. Me and saKill – Both of us really didn’t want to be there. We just started talking & discovered that we were both into music and playing music. It went form there.

Any weird stuffs that has happened with the band?

Hmmmm….well I’ve had my bass player and my drummer get into a really serious fistfight in the middle of one of our jam sessions. They were accusing each other of playing off-time. And I was like “dude, both of you are playing off-time”.
I guess it’s more funny than weird.

Tell me something about the recording of Nemesis song.. and the recording of other songs too.

We recorded Nemesis after I found out that I had to come to US. I think a couple of weeks before I had to leave. Everything was going so well with the band and we were really starting to find our own voice. It was really sad that we had to leave it at that. So we decided to record something to capture what we had.
It was recorded at Namaste studios. We wanted to do the drums live – looked everywhere for recording-worthy double bass drum – couldn’t find one. So we used an Alesis drum machine – which I think turned out pretty good. Guitar was a crappy Samick, which went out of tune every time I used the whammy bar to do the dives on the pre-chorus. It went through a Boss Metal Zone and on the clean channel of the studio guitar amp, which was double miked. I also used some delay for the solo.

I can still remember the look the sound-engineer gave me while recording the vocals. I guess he wasn’t expecting what he was hearing. He he….

Other songs – not much to tell – just me, in my room jamming and the computer recording any interesting stuff.

How do u describe the songs…music wise and lyrics wise….

“Nemesis”
I like this part when you growl the chorus from your guts…Nemesis, Nemesis, Death Just great !!

It’s a death metal song until the outro and the solo. Lots of atonal whole-tone riffing here. The words are about the dark premonitions I was having about the whole Maoist thing that was just starting to escalate then. Its very aggressive and pissed off – calls for death of all the corrupt politicians. The outro & solo is a lament for all the lives lost and the blood spilt.

“Dark world” another great cut and those laughter sort of stuffs

It’s a piece of lyrics one of my friends wrote. I was really impressed with what it said. I just threw together some rhythm and wah-guitar around it. For the percussion part, I grabbed a Madal that was lying around.

“Dance of the dead”

It’s post-death-metal/ Industrial, Lot’s of feedback and whispered words has a B-horror movie feel
….Zombies roam free………
But seriously, I read this piece of news somewhere. The Maobadis showed up one night (masked), and abducted this village council guy. They tortured the guy, hammered nails into his knees etc. and left him for dead.

“Untitled (Gothic)” my favourite number, really bizzaire and crazy percussions here man…

This is incomplete. Ananda is writing an intro and outro for this. It’s kinda like black metal (Cradle of Filth, Venom) but not overtly so.

Lyrics were conceived sometime during the harsh winter of ’99, walking through the snow-covered fields of godforsaken Kent, OH. I was reading a lot of Edger Allen Poe at that time. So the words are somewhat influenced by Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and others.

(2002-2003)

LINE UP:
Zivon Gurung – Guitars
Sandeep Gurung – Vocals
Rajkumar Gurung – Drums
Subash Karna – Bass

DISCOGRAPHY:None

DOWNLOAD: http://www.pkrrocks.com

GENRE: Black and Death

STATUS: Active

BIOGRAPHY:

Initially named as ‘BEHELD IN SHROUD’
Location: Pokhara
Year of Inception: 2006
Formed by: Zivon Gurung

Influences: Burzum, Emperor, Opeth, Cradle of Filth, Lamb of God

Album(s) released – None

They are more into performing their own originals rather than performing covers. Originals till date: 4 numbers with full composition with one nepali number called ‘Atripta Kaal ko Yatra’. All the songs written and composed by Zivon Gurung

Fav Local Band: Refused 13, Beyond, Cruentus, Albatross

Future Projection: to organize a gig on June 6, (667 theme concert) it should have been 666.

Fact: All of the members are Civil Engineering Students

LINE UP:
Khagendra (Vocals), Krishna (Guitars), Yoban (Guitars), Niraj (Bass), Pujan (Drums)

DISCOGRAPHY:
Murda ko Desh

DOWNLOAD: http://www.soundclick.com/epitaph

STATUS: Active

BIOGRAPHY:

“The Band’s history does not go too far. It was 2002 when we realize that we got some potential in us. So we started jaming up regularly. We used to jam up before but hadn’t formed a band . In 2002 we formed a band. We did covers for time being until we named our band as Epitaph. Then we started composing our own stuffs. After every member passed slc, we got together regularly and jammed.”

Friends since their childhood, the members are Khagendra Raj Ghale on vocals, Krishna Gurung & Yoban Gurun on guitars, Niraj Dhakal on bass and Pujan Manandhar on drums. All band member have their own influences and thus the mix up is able to form a tight band. So far the band has completed three originals, “Murdako Desh”,”Silhouettes” and “Binasak Agragnya”

The band is working their ass off for more originals “Sceptre of Dying”, “Barbaric Regulation” and “Campaign of Terror”.

Soon the band is moving to Studio 2000 for their first ever recording.

contact band : vex_infinium@hotmail.com

LINE UP:
Bibek – guitars
Rajiv – guitars
Pranay – bass
Bibek – drums
Pushkar -vocals

DISCOGRAPHY: None

DOWNLOAD: Deadefy @ myspace

GENRE:Blackened Death

STATUS: Active

BIOGRAPHY:

Initially named as: DEAD DEFY
Location: Kathmandu
Genre: Metal
Year of Inception: 2005

Influences: Slayer

Fav Local Band: Ugra karma, Cruentus and almost all active bands.

About:

The band was formed by Bibek (guitars), Pushkar (drums) and Binay (vocals and bass) and used to cover Sepultura back then. Two new guys- Rajiv (bass) and Bibek (drums) joined in after Binay left, so Pushkar started with vocals. Finally, Pranay walked in for bass and Rajiv switched to guitars to complete the current line up. Deadefy covers only Slayer in concerts so it is also a Slayer tribute band.

Gigs played so far:
3 gigs – One Nation Underground at MPC, Show No Mercy at NMC and Hell Awaits-II at NMC.

Songs:
Till now the band has only covered Slayer on stage but are working on the originals and so far have completed 4 originals. The band is about to record two songs titled “Sovereignty of the Evil” and “Beast of Burden”

For the fans of:
Slayer and death/extreme metal fans

LINEUP:
Anuraag (vocals), Sunny (Guitars), Diwas (Guitars), Avaya (Bass) and Dipesh (Drums)

DISCOGRAPHY:
HighFly (a full length album)

DOWNLOAD:http://www.geocities.com/therag

STATUS: Inactive

BIOGRAPHY:

The history of the band starts quite some time before it was actually formed. Back in their pre-SLC days (1997), Sunny and Avaya played in a band called “Applesauce” along with Massismo (Max). Max played bass, Avaya played the drums, and Sunny handled both the mic and the guitar. Covering artists such as Alice in Chains and Silverchair, Applesauce played a variety of live shows, establishing itself as a band that loves to perform. However, despite a promising future, it seemed that the band was destined to fail. In 1998, Max had to leave for Denmark, and while this deprived them of a nifty bassist and a close friend, their approaching examinations seemed to spell the word doom.

After surviving their exams, however, Sunny and Avaya planned to do anything but sit around feeling voiceless. The only problem was that with Max gone, the band was incomplete. It was around this time that Avaya started fooling around with a bass guitar, and discovered something very strange… he actually enjoyed it!. A few more slap-and-pops were enough to convince him that it was time to trade in his sticks for a plectrum. Looking for other musicians to help complete a group, the band came across Dipesh. Even though they had been friends for quite some time, no one had any idea that Dipesh could actually play drums. At that time, Dipesh was playing drums in his school band “Saboteur”, and after seeing him play, they knew they had found their new drummer. All it took was a little persuasion and a lot of threats (hehe), before Dipesh agreed to play with them. And with Nitesh on vocals, and Sunny handling axe duties again, “Albatross” was born.

While the whole music scene of Nepal revolved around hard rock and heavy metal, the band ripped through cliches with their furious live shows and their covers of unconventional bands like Rage Against the Machine and Red Hot Chili Peppers. They performed quite extensively and became a regular feature at the Bamboo’s Club in Thamel. “Nitesh used to hang out with us and his style really reaped the hell out of my brains”, Sunny says. At this time, Albatross also recorded a single “Broke 17″, a track that pays tribute to one of their favorite bands, Rage Against the Machine, with its choppy riffs and jacked up rap. “We were (and are) really influenced and inspired by RATM and so we recorded a song Broke 17. It was recored at the Sacred Soundz Studio and produced by one of the coolest people in the world: Iman Bikram Shah”, the band says. Although this single failed to get the airplay it deserved, the band continued playing live shows (the lifeblood of Albatross), and even jammed with Axata at various events. Then, with Nitesh deciding to take a break from vocal duty, the band decided to take a slightly different musical direction and along came Sirish from Monkey Temple on vocals. With his distinguishing ability to throw his voice amazingly high, the band found that they could now play many other styles of music as well. ” With [Sirish] Dali we started playing covers of Korn, Creed, Pantera, Pearl Jam, Iron Maiden, etc. at our various gigs. And to top it all off, our new tastes helped us develop our original work as well.” The band recorded another single, titled “hellskitchen”, a metal-meets-rock track that features a very tight string section and precise drumming along with some lung-stretching vocal feats. The track has been featured on the Muzik Isles compilation album, and although it has fallen prey to poor mixing, any Albatross live show will bring this song up to its full potential.

The band had just barely begun to relax when it faced problems again. Sirish had to leave Nepal in order to continue his studies in America. The band was without a vocalist, yet again. Not knowing what to do, Sunny and Avaya thought things over and decided to take a risk. About a month ago, they had seen another band play at a GAA gig in Thamel. The band had just been starting out and went by the rather comical name of “Mop Handle Mama”. They decided to call up Diwas and Anuraag from MPH and jam with them for a while, and see how things went. To everyone’s surprise, they discovered they all had similar tastes in music, and their ideas about music flowed in pretty much the same direction. And so, after a month of heavy headbanging followed by some heavy bonging, Anuraag and Diwas officially joined Albatross.

Wishing to take the band along slightly darker and heavier roads, they are all dedicated to churning out the heaviest music they can. Twin-riffing and thrashing out solos with a characteristic precision that still houses the fury of the bands they are inspired by, the string section of the band, comprised of Sunny and Diwas, has attained a new heaviness that is multiplied by the slam of Avaya’s versatile bass-playing: from the teethy crunchiness of a full-blown metal song, to the engine-smooth groove of funk-rap inflection. Influenced heavily by Korn and RATM, Anuraag revels in pushing his voice to the limits and more than compensates for any lack of through frenzied doses of banging the very blood out of his head. And with the unique skinslamming abilities and almost jazzlike timing of Dipesh’s drums, Albatross is indeed flying high. In more ways than one.

CURRENT STUFF:

The band is working on its first ever full-length album. Wishing to address various topics such as the recent rather disheartening slander of the band’s name and more seriously, the state of the country, they would like to take their time and come up with meaningful songs that have all the “force and power of a punch to the gut”.

“We want to come up with songs that have indomitable strength and fury. Something as brutal as Pantera and yet with all the intelligence of Rage Against the Machine. When we get on stage, we want to be able to just explode… so that the sky and the ground change places for us. Nothing beats racking the hell out of our respective instruments and having a good time. And that’s the biggest factor in it all: Playing live. And having a fucking kickass time doing it.”

LINE UP:
Pawan – Vocals
Samip – Bass
Prajwol – Drums
Pramithus – Guitar
Sushovan – Guitar

DISCOGRAPHY:
None

DOWNLOAD:
Bitter Euphemism live at the ktmROCKS Feast of Blood

STATUS:
Active

GENRE:
Death Metal

BIOGRAPHY:

Formed in 2005 by the students of Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel. Winner of 2nd annual KCM Intercollege Music Competition. The band’s major influences include Sepultura, Pantera, Cannibal Corpse, Cryptopsy, Nile, Macabre and their favorite local bands are Breeding Pestilence, Atomic Bush, Albatross, Nastik, Cruentus, Holocaust and Karmavalanche.

CURRENT LINE UP:
Parash Shakya– vocal
Pankaj Shakya– guitar
Bhaskar Swar-guitar
Niraj Shakya– keys
Surya Pun– drums
Kundan Shrestha-bass

PAST MEMBERS:
Yudhir Gautam – Guitars
Sabin Shrestha – Drums
Sunny Mahat – Bass
Supath Sitaula – Guitars
Pratik Thapa – Bass

DISCOGRAPHY:
Forever Winter (2004)
Tales From The Darkened Woods (2005)
In Thy Ambience of Malevolence (2007)
The Ruin Of Immortals (2009)
Putrefaction Eternity (2010)

Facebook Page:

http://www.facebook.com/grahan.antim

STATUS:
Active

BIOGRAPHY:

Formed in the late 2003, Antim Grahan has now emerged as one of the premier extreme metal outfit in the underground scenario of Nepal. The band is recognized in the underground community as a prime example of virtuosity, perseverance, dedication and evolution.

Antim Grahan is the first band to have a record label in the local underground scene in Nepal as it has been associated with KtmRecords from its first album.

The band has released 4 albums under their belt with the latest one, The Ruin of Immortals, being released internationally in Japan. Antim Grahan has become the first band to be recognized worldwide and have an international release.

With the release of their new album, The Ruin of Immortals, they have left behind the melodic pattern of music which they were mostly related with and now with their latest release, they have touched the new heights of brutality.

And by the looks of things to come, the reign of black metal has certainly begun!