Exclusive Premiere: Metallers Festacorn Unveil Murky New Song ‘Raspberry Punch’

Deranged quacks, a house party and spiked drinks — it’s all part of Mumbai prog metal band Festacorn’s new music video “Raspberry Punch,” which serves as a “trailer” to the concept behind their upcoming debut full-length album Slap City Central.

Although the song won’t be part of the album, it still matches up to Festacorn’s quirky approach to writing heavy music — there’s ominous production elements, crunchy riffs and a breakdown to tie it all together. “Raspberry Punch,” was written a few months following their 2018 EP It’s Only Natural. Guitarist Angad Bhatia says, “While we see different fears and paranoias all through the video, Slap City Central goes deeper into the human mind with each track, exploring these fears further at a micro level. The song itself sets up what’s to come sonically and thematically on the album.”

In the video directed by Festacorn vocalist Vivek Jha, photographer-filmmaker Ravin Jadhav and animation by Chinmay Patkar (from Mumbai alternative band Corner Cafe Chronicles), a house party takes a turn for the gruesome and everyone becomes a victim of a mad scientist-type, who serves up a potent drink at a diner that pays homage to 20th century painting Nighthawks by Edward Hopper. Bhatia explains the visual reference, “The painting has come to represent a symbolic beacon of light and hope and comfort in a dark world; as the familiar old place that we all long for; a place that makes us nostalgic for something we’ve never felt. This plays perfectly into our overarching storyline as well as gives us a very recognizable image to portray the dichotomy of our presumptive tendencies, which we want to highlight through the story.”

The visual world of storytelling is something Festacorn are keenly pursuing in the buildup to the eight-track Slap City Central. The band has been making minute long videos for Instagram and establishing the “universe around the diner that is Slap City Central.” He adds, “We are planning one more video with a single from the album, but we’ll have to see how things work out in the coming months. Our primary focus is to put out the album without much tease, as we know it’ll be best enjoyed as a whole.”

Watch the video for “Raspberry Punch” below.