RRTA
Rudra, RTA – I always liked Rudra, they have a great, ancient yet modern vedic metal sound (maybe they invented the sub-genre?!), so it always sounds fresh, even when it sounds familiar. The vocals are aggressive and scary without sounding cheesy, and the experimentations are always interesting. I’ve seen the guys play twice here in Singapore, and I love their show. I have met one of the guys a few times, and he’s a really cool dude. The band is awesome and they always deliver. Well, nearly always – in terms of production, the sound of this release is spare and thin at parts, but this is probably more for delivering a layered variety than simply delivering punishment – the release is exciting, diverse, and lots of fun. The band has been around for over 20 years, they have given so much, and they still have so much to give!
This release only has six songs, but they’re pretty long – from 9 to 12 minutes (an additional track, the seventh “Untitled” number is shorter). “Death” starts the fun, with singing in Sanskrit and mellow guitar, flute, and other madness, before it zooms off into aggro-land. Cool solos! “Heartbreak” also has a cool, mellow intro, with some nice sounds, before it gets aggressive – a measured, precise grind, that incorporates some gamelan, dragging the sound down a bit; but the song warms up with a great solo and cool riffs, and ends with cool guitar riffage interplay. “Abduction” also starts off with a slow riff, but this one very quickly builds into nasty feedback and goes dark and mid-tempo. Great flute part in the middle contrasted with clean and dirty guitar! “Resolve” is a pretty standard cruncher with cool riffs, great drum fills, and howling and growling, ending with some beautiful flute sounds. “Manipulation” starts off fast and heavy, nice, then builds and builds, to a nice mellow solo with tabla and flute, then gets absolutely ferocious. The song has so many great moments, it’s just endless. The ending is full of flute and noise, great great great!! The final song, “[Untitled]” is an outtake of Gamelan sounds and chanting, good fun!