Exclusive Premiere: Pandora’s Box Release Power-Packed New Song ‘The Shattering’
The Hyderabad prog metallers are preparing a three-track concept EP, which is partly inspired by real life events threatening ‘pluralistic society’
Hyderabad prog metallers Pandora's Box. Photo: Ajay Kumar
Progressive rock and metal concept records aren’t all sci-fi and dystopia, especially when they’re rooted in reality. Hyderabad prog band Pandora’s Box have released the first song from a three-track EP, which narrates a semi-fictional story of an adolescent daughter who loses her mother, an outspoken journalist, who is gunned down before her eyes.
Their sublime, emotive and heavy song “The Shattering” brings together samples of news reports and speeches that kick into a snarling groove. Vocalist Deepu Joseph says they’ve been performing the song at shows since early this year, when they were still promoting their 2018 EP Divergence. Although it stays true to the band’s complex prog chops, the seven-minute track has emotion at the center of its songwriting. “‘The Shattering’ is a slightly conscious effort to stay true to the emotions of the people in our story without focusing too much on the technicality of the arrangements,” the vocalist says.
Sonically, the EP is still taking shape but Joseph promises a “rollercoaster of styles and moods to keep in line with the emotions that the protagonist in our story goes through.” Across the EP, Pandora’s Box are keen to talk about what happens when a “school of thought or way of life” is enforced upon “distinct subcultures that are supposed to thrive in a pluralistic society.” Although the vocalist doesn’t want to mention any specific real-life incident, there are certainly a few that come to my mind in current events. Joseph says, “We took that true incident where dissent was fatally silenced and weaved in some fictional elements around it to showcase varied human emotions.”
With the storyline set, the EP is being prepped and the band says they’re keen on making a music video at some point as well, once their resources allow it. Joseph says, “We’ve never done one so far. With the kind of themes we incorporate into our music, it’s got to be tastefully done.”
Hear “The Shattering” below.
