Plague Throat Pose a Paradox

Plague Throat. Photo: Embor Sayo

“It’s funny, this album has survived earthquakes and power cuts,” laughs guitarist-growler Nangsan Lyngwa, while talking about his death metal band Plague Throat’s long awaited debut full-length, The Human Paradox. He recalls when they felt the tremors, drummer Malice aka Dolreich Bianglang Kharmawphlang was recording with producer Ashwin Shriyan (the Mumbai bassist had flown down from Mumbai) at the band’s home studio. “They were tracking the last section and had to run out of the house. I asked Ashwin if he’d saved the session and he said he hadn’t, so we had to redo it.”

There’s a certain bemusement in Lyngwa’s voice; he can always start a sentence in a somber tone even if he wants to say something funny. Perhaps that’s what is pretty death metal about him and Plague Throat. They can joke about how an earthquake played spoilsport during one tracking session, when the damage could have been much worse.

For a band that’s been around since 2008 and started seeing much more approval after their debut EP An Exordium to Contagion (2013), breaking out of the North East to play across the major metros and a performance at Wacken Open Air in Germany in 2014, Plague Throat is putting a rough year behind them. Their bassist Iaidon Jyrwa was out of the band owing to personal reasons in May. Then, in August, the band called for a “long term hiatus” while promising that they will release The Human Paradox. “What matters is that the music comes first… and I can’t be pointing fingers at anyone,” says Lyngwa. With session bassist Jerry Nelson Ranee (guitarist for Shillong metallers Aberrant) on board, the band will release the 10-track album in January via Transcending Obscurity India (moving from their existing label Incanned Productions) with a possible tour in February. The Human Paradox covers Plague Throat’s earliest material and the latest. Although Lyngwa also tracked bass parts despite having a perfectly capable producerbassist like Shriyan helping with the album, there is one guest featured on the album””“Conception Subjection” includes a guitar solo from former Demonic Resurrection guitarist Daniel Kenneth Rego.

The Malice-penned “Ma Nga” originated in 2006, before the band’s current avatar, and the album also features pounding death metal early cuts such as “Dominion Breach,” their first single “Inherited Failure” which Lyngwa wrote overnight, and “Conflict Resolution,” which is an allout razor-sharp riff fest. “People always say death metal guitarists don’t do much, so I thought I’d do this and see what people say,” Lyngwa says.