Exclusive Premiere: Midhaven Surge Back To Form on Rattling ‘Primal Song’

Seven years after their debut full-length album Spellbound, Mumbai-based metallers Midhaven make a roaring, heavy duty comeback with a new single called “Primal Song.”

Taken from their upcoming album Of The Lotus & The Thunderbolt (releasing on July 8th), the song digs into an appropriately visceral side of the band who have previously explored sludge, prog and heavy metal. “Primal Song,” produced by the band and Apurv Agrawal and mixed and mastered by Australian ace engineer Forrester Savell, hammers down on a more succinct, unsparing sound, prefacing the seven-track record.

Guitarist-vocalist Aditya Mohanan – who joined Midhaven at the end of 2017 – takes on lead vocals, while Karan Kaul brings in wiry, dissonant bursts of riffs to match with drummer Aviraj Kumar’s clockwork rhythms. Mohanan, part of erstwhile death metal band Killchain, says about the song, “There’s not many words going on – it’s been tailored in a way that conveys that frustration, that fire.” Fire is one of the main motifs in the music video for “Primal Song” as well, shot by filmmaker/photographer Swapn Gupta.

Among the first songs written for Of The Lotus & The Thunderbolt along with “Codeman” in 2018, the trio recall how the focus of Midhaven shifted to becoming good friends first and then feeding off of that rapport when it came to composing. “When you see this video, it shows how much we’ve grown as a band. This is just 10 levels up. I hope that’s something people recognize as well… how much we’ve grown as a band,” Kumar says.

There are metaphysical ideas at the core of the new album’s narrative, heightened by visual artist Gaurav Basu aka Acid Toad’s tapestry-like artwork for the record. The drummer adds that they’re planning “curated merch” comprising T-shirts, posters, rolling papers and CDs.

Interestingly, the album was completed by 2019 and just as Midhaven were prepping for a big year, the pandemic set their plans back. Even now, they’re not holding out hopes for touring as such, seeking out other ways to promote the album, like live performance videos. Kaul says about the wait, “We used this time to perfect the album.” Kumar adds, “It’s reached a point where we can’t hold on to this anymore.”

Clearly Midhaven’s way of letting go is more of unleashing, as “Primal Song” signals. At the center of it is Midhaven’s strong friendship, which Kaul refers to as “an unholy trinity.” He adds, “This album is basically us taking a huge part of ourselves and putting it out there. The satisfaction came from the fact it was for us. We needed to write it for us.”

Watch the video for “Primal Song” below.