Album review: Anthracite ”“ Groove Sandwich
The Mumbai industrial metal band’s debut album is an example of why new bands shouldn’t hurry into the studio with half-baked songs
Mumbai industrial metal band Anthracite
[easyreview cat1title = “Groove Sandwich” cat1rating = 1.5]
Groove Sandwich
Students of Bunts Sangha College in Mumbai are likely to be familiar with industrial metal band, Anthracite. The band won a competition at the college in 2012, the year they formed. Over the year, they have largely been playing on campuses across India, from Kharagpur to Pune [They were among the top 5 finalists at NLS’s Strawberry Fields competition last year]. And their debut album makes this fact amply clear. They might have given college bands a run for the money at band competitions in the last two years, but the band needed a lot more stage time ahead of their studio album’s release.
The eight-track effort that is Groove Sandwich is quite immature in that it heavily draws from late Nineties American metal. Tracks like “Offtune” recall Limp Bizkit and System of a Down. Vocalist Abhishek Nair channels his inner Fred Durst and Serj Tankian to the extent that it sounds like hero-worship. Their popular tune, “Facts,” invokes comparisons to Slipknot’s “Duality.” “Sugar Neck” and “Static Me” are perhaps the only tracks that show promise. We certainly prefer Nair’s growls and clean choruses over the rap rhymes he throws in “Urgent Decision,” although there aren’t many metalcore influences on the track and the band seems to be struggling to strike the balance between rap and metal that makes nu-metal so interesting. Brothers Dev on drums and Deep Ramkumar on bass bring brutal grooves with precision throughout, but the riffs from guitarists Sahil Deshpande and Siddharth Mantri don’t wander much outside of the usual metal inventory of palm-muting, power chords and melodies.
There are other redeeming moments on the album including tracks such as “Sugar Neck” that edge the band towards sounds that you’re not going to get tired of within the first listen. “Inner Voice” is much fresher than the rest of the songs for its alternative flavor. Anthracite finally break away from overused guitar tones and predictable song structures here.
For anyone looking for upcoming metal bands, Anthracite may not be the best pick, given their derived sound. Videos of their performances suggest that the band bring a different game to the stage, so we’re hoping that Groove Sandwich has more to offer when the band performs next.
Anthracite performs with Reverrse Polarity and Petrichor at Blue Frog, Mumbai on August 25th, 2013. Entry Rs 250. Event details here.
Stream Groove Sandwich in full here:
