RUDRA - Brahmavidya: Primordial I CD

Killer band, needs to be heard.

Chinese import with OBI.

-LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES
- JEWEL CASE
- 20-PAGE BOOKLET
- OFFICIALLY LICENSED REISSUE
- ORIGINALLY RELEASED IN 2005
- REMASTERED IN 2022

When I first listened to Rudra (which wasn't easy considering their stuff is hard) I was very pleasantly surprised. Unlike their other work this is more of a fast paced somewhat melodic death metal album, than a true fusion of Indian classical music and metal which we call Vedic Metal. Despite the fact they are moving more Western in style, they do retain Indian influences in a meaningful manner. This is especially impressive considering how poorly Indian Cine music does this.

Whenever one talks about Death Metal one must also specify the brutality. One one hand we have bands like Suffocation and Nile that have harsh both in vocals and melody as compared to other bands like Opeth and In Flames which use harsh lyrics but whose melodies are more palettable. This album falls into the latter category but not because they are melody driven like In Flames but rather as a result of the Indian Classical facets of their music. While I won't elaborate on this, suffice it to say that you can't be true to a Raga with exceptionally high distortion.

Considering this is the closest Rudra album to Western Metal I would suggest listening to this as your first Rudra album and if you are not new to Rudra this won't disappoint.