Listen: Bengaluru Guitarist Shreyas Skandan’s First Single “Astron Nomos”

Shreyas Skandan. Photo: Courtesy of the artist

Last month, Bengaluru guitarist Shreyas Skandan had some tall praise for prog metal band Skyharbor’s producer, even as he put his own work down: “Whoever says you can’t polish a turd hasn’t sent a turd to Keshav Dhar,” Skandan, who is the guitarist of prog metal band Limit Zero, began work on his debut solo EP, The Shreyas Skandan Project EP, last year. “Astron Nomos,” the first single from Skandan’s EP, makes it easy for you to dismiss his self-deprecatory comments. A trippy mix of space metal, combining tapped riffs and light-headed synth, “Astron Nomos” is impressive right from the first listen, placing Skandan in the same league as American progressive metal band Animals as Leaders and Plini from Australia.

Skandan admits that differentiating between writing material for Limit Zero and his solo project was hard at first. Adds the guitarist, “I tried to incorporate these riffs into some Limit Zero material but they seemed to have a strong and distinctive sound that wasn’t Limit Zero. I continued working on the material until I finally realized I had to write this music under a different moniker.” The three-track EP also includes collaborations with American guitarist Joe Marro [on “Astron Nomos”], Norwegian guitarist Rune Berre [on “Mariner”] and Skandan’s pianist friend Shivram Krishnan, who added piano parts throughout the EP.

The rest of the three-track EP will be released later this month, says Skandan. He adds, “There are moments when it [EP] gets pretty dark and gloomy but the rest of the EP is upbeat and filled with positive and inspiring passages.” The guitarist however notes that there are no plans to take his project live, making the EP a studio-only release. He adds, “My only next step is to release a guitar/instrument playthrough for every track, along with a short description of the story behind each track and the message I wanted to convey.”

Listen to “Astron Nomos” here