Exclusive Premiere: Pune Death Metal Band Ragnhild’s Blazing ‘Under The Red Sky’

When Pune-based metallers Ragnhild emerged in 2012, they claimed they were India’s first and only Viking/Pagan death metal band. Even if they were met with intrigue and sometimes, dismissal, they’ve powered on to ready their debut album Tavern Tales for release in March.

As much as there’s a bit of old school metal and death metal influence in their sound, Ragnhild channel modern metal aggression on their new song “Under The Red Sky,” featuring a music video shot by filmmaker Aniket Mane. Meanwhile, the slick and cinematic artwork has been created by Mumbai-based visual artist Aaron Pinto aka Art of Kidsquidy (who also drums for death metal bands Gutslit and Providence).

The melody-driven “Under The Red Sky” moves into piercing riffs over vocalist Rohit Jalgaonkar’s visceral growls. The band says most of the songs in the nine-track Tavern Tales have been informed by melodic death metal and specifically Nordic and Celtic melodies set over heavier music. “The lyrics that we wrote are basically out of our own imagination of various incidents that took place in our history. ‘Under The Red Sky’ is written with similar ideas. The lyrics talk about a fleet of soldiers that were betrayed by one of our own and by the grace of the gods, they found out about the ambush that awaits.”

Stay tuned on the band’s Facebook page for more details on pre-ordering ”˜Tavern Tales.’