Midhaven on Finding Inspiration in Indian Mythology and Going International

Back in 2019, the mythology-inspired minds of Midhaven’s Karan Kaul and Aditya Mohanan were writing a song on demigods or asuras. Mohanan says over a Zoom call, “[We wanted] to write something heavy, something todfod (destructive) for that theme, but then we thought, what does that sound like?”

Their drummer Aviraj Kumar then suggested something unorthodox but not unheard of for a guitarist like Mohanan. “Avi said, ‘Why don’t you do one of these things where you just spin a riff on a raga?’ I’m like, ‘Dude, it doesn’t work like that.’ And then I did think about it,” Mohanan says with a laugh.

It led to him writing guitar parts of their new song “The Veiler” in raga Todi and became the Mumbai psychedelic/sludge metal band’s heaviest song, recalling the likes of American metal bands like Mastodon. It helped that Kaul — who founded the band in 2011 — was working on a bluesy riff that Mohanan noticed could be “tweaked by one note” to be in raga Todi. While Mohanan has written on raga Bhairav on their track “Bhairav,” off their 2021 album Of The Lotus & The Thunderbolt, this was different. “I was summoning it [raga] actively. It’s a very tense, very dark, ominous… a very anxious raga. So I wanted to take that sound, because if that’s not metal, then what is?” he muses.

Produced by Apurv Agarwal, “The Veiler” is a rattling track that keeps all the signature dissonance and melody of Midhaven’s songwriting intact, but takes things up a notch. They’ve delivered ploughing riffs in the past, but “The Veiler” oscillates between heavy, meditative and even accessible in a way they’ve never done before.

It comes at a time when Midhaven have bid goodbye to longtime drummer Aviraj Kumar, with Aryaman Chatterji (from doom band Dirge) taking over, alongside bassist Akash Vyas. At the same time, Midhaven are pushing for international recognition. After supporting folk-metal exports Bloodywood on their France dates (including famed venue the Bataclan) on the Return of the Singh tour earlier this year, Midhaven are in Japan for a five-date tour this week, which culminates with a standalone show in Tokyo on Dec. 9, 2025. At four shows, they’re supporting tech-death masters Origin as well as grind act Defleshed, making for a diverse show lineup.

The catalyst for performing abroad for Midhaven has been the Bloodywood shows, which may not have made financial sense (flying to France for three shows on their own dime) but remained fulfilling. Kaul says, “Getting the opportunity to play with Bloodywood was a huge one for us or any underground, but there are so many things we took away from those shows. We really came back wanting to do more with the act itself.”

Mohanan adds, “From day one, I think the context was set before I joined the band that this is going to be an international thing. That’s how Karan invited me, and that’s why I walked in, also, because it sounded very tantalizing.” Kaul regards touring overseas as “the only frontier” for Indian metal bands who want a sizeable audience. “And then you come back and play your country as much as you can,” he adds.

Midhaven looked eastwards after a friend of Mohanan recommended it, and later, so did Bloodywood vocalist Jayant Bhadula. “We were hanging out after our show in Lille, and Jayant was asking what’s next, and I didn’t know what to say. He said, ‘Just do Japan. Try to build a following there, because those guys are loyal and they buy merch like it’s hotcakes.’ So it’s a great market,” Mohanan says.

There’s also the trip in May 2026 to play at Desertfest in London, a mainstay for heavy music in Europe that has the likes of Clutch on the lineup in the forthcoming edition. It’s a full-circle moment, because Mohanan had attended Desertfest about seven years ago and FaceTimed Kaul to rave about it. Kaul says, “I was on my way back home from recording guitars for the last album, so I was in a great mood. Aditya said it was the best festival ever and said we should play here. He said, ‘This is going to be home for us.’” I think that it’s the one festival we’ve been looking forward to for a while, and really excited to play that.” Mohanan, for his part, owns up that he’s currently at a loss of words to accurately sum up his feelings about playing Desertfest. “It’s ineffable,” he says.

There will be more U.K. and Europe dates to be announced around Midhaven’s Desertfest appearance in mid-2026, as well as a new song early next year. “We have hopes for an EP in the third quarter of next year, but that remains to be seen,” Mohanan says.