Hear Bengaluru Metallers Trash Talk’s Primal New EP ‘BURD’

On a trip to Kenya, Bengaluru metal band Trash Talk’s recent recruit, guitarist Ajay George Joseph spotted a secretary bird. Vocalist and producer Arshaq Malik explains, “It’s this bird of prey that’s about four feet tall, has a feather crown, super long legs and usually terrestrial. The interesting thing about it is that it can apparently kick with the force of five times its body weight and feeds on snakes. It basically kicks the shit out of the snake’s head repeatedly until it dies.”

The fascination with birds led to the creation of their new four-track EP BURD, which not only amps up the aural chaos that Trash Talk are known for, but also frame it around nature documentaries, giving it an observational aesthetic. “Ruuster” is suitably mathcore in the vein of The Dillinger Escape Plan, while “Sekretari Burd” is stomping, dissonant and frenetic paced, until it dips into a jazz outro. “Pijun” leans more on hip-hop, sampling a song called “Pigeon” by American hip-hop duo Cannibal Ox, before descending into an atmospheric Gojira-esque style. “Kondor,” the closing track is spookier in its buildup, leading to a sludge metal-leaning breakdown. Malik says the process was to “sonically mimic the characteristics of a different bird and we tried to actualize that as much as possible.”

BURD is the first collection of songs from Trash Talk (following the 2019 single “Man In Search of Man”) to feature guitarist Joseph, as well as drummer Deepak Dass. Ashwin Natarajan, a co-founder of the band, handles the low-end duties as bassist. There was a music video in the works, but the current national lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic has put a spanner in the plans. Malik however adds, “We do have a couple of singles that we’re planning on recording and most importantly, we’re trying to improve the overall quality of recording and production in the future. So far, we’ve just been taking a DIY approach to the production side of things but we definitely want to step up our game.”

Listen to ‘BURD’ EP below. Stream on Spotify and Apple Music.