Rudra's music, as it stands, has metalheads squarely divided. You either love them or loathe them, no two ways about it. There's never the guy who "likes their earlier work" or thinks that "they've matured with time". Now, I'm decidedly of the first ilk, having fucking LOVED this Singapore quartet since I chanced upon Aryan Crusade about 4 years ago. I'm not going to try to persuade any of you fuckers in the latter category to change sides, although I will reserve my right to comment that your side is comprised mostly of homosexuals (aah, the crux of all internet debate.Don't you just LOVE it?). Also, I specifically target that group which has a very annoying tendency to dismiss Rudra's music crudely as a "gimmick" while cleaning the jizz off their Nile albums. You sir, are an amoebum with the ability to type,positioned snugly in the evolutionary tree somewhere above normal amoeba and an earthworm.

Now, with that out of the way, let us delve into the album on hand here. Brahmaviya: Primordial I is Rudra's 4th full length album , succeeding 2003's excellent Kurukshetra. The fare is vintage Rudra, which means mid to hyper tempo thrashage, peppered liberally with Indian (more specifically, Carnatic) harmonies and percussion. There are some notable changes over their earlier work, though. The band has embraced the Indian influences even more strongly on this album : most marked being increased usage of stunning carnatic vocal passages over light acoustic/distorted guitar rhythms backed by traditional Indian percussion like the dhol and the tabla . Further, bassist/vocalist and principal songwriter Kathir's love of black metal creeps into the fray, manifesting itself in the form of hyperspeed blastbeat fests on songs like Twilight Of Duality, Rudra and Veil Of Maya and also to an extent on the vocal delivery. The vocals sound like a blackened, more hard edged version of early Petrozza. And ofcourse, Shiva's remarkable capabilities behind the drumkit are brought out to the maximum on this album. There are superb timing changes and rhythm patterns, all attended to with astounding precision.

Album opener Twilight Of Duality starts off with a dhol rhythm, and slams without warning into a frenzy of blastbeats and hyprekinetic riffage, which pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the album. The timing and tempo changes come when you least expect them and the changes themselvices are dramatic flourishes, varying from blastbeats to Indian rhythms, soft chants and female vocals. The mid song breakdown on There The Sun Never Shines, for instance is simply breathtaking, alternating from a blinding blastbeat chorus to a beautifully delivered carnatic vocal passage. The female carnatic vocalist Aishwaryah also does a remarkable job on Shivoham and album closer In The Fourth Quarter: Turiya, managing to carry brilliantly the patrician grace and melody of carnatic music amidst a blitzkrieg of heavy metal. There are indeed less conventional metal songs on this album than on Aryan Crusade, for instance but the amalgam is carried out extremely tastefully. The Pathless Path to the Knowable Unknown is as close as Rudra get to standard heavy metal fare on Brahmavidya:Primordial I, opening with a galloping E Minor riff but soon gets back into the all encompassing larger mood of the album with chants and Indian scales flying all over the place. The midsong breakdown on this track too, is fucking brilliant. Picks of the album for me personally would be Veil Of Maya, Ananya Chaitanya, Pathless Path and the unnervingly mellow Shivoham.

This album has finally brought long overdue recognition to the band, and not without reason. It is Rudra's most evolved output to date, both in terms of maturity of songwriting and in terms of HUGE leaps in the quality of production. Lyrically, the band deals with Hindu mythology and religion, mostly invoking references from the Vedas and the Upanishads. However, to compare them to preachy Christian metal bands (as I've often witnessed less informed reviewers do) would be a gross injustice to the depth of their lyrical content.

Overall, if you're a broadminded metalhead looking for something a tad different, this would be a definite recco. Do the Rudra thandavaa!

Year: 2005

Label: Demonzend Records

Tracklisting:

1.Twilight of Duality
2.Ananya Chaitanya
3.The Pathless Path to the Knowable Unknown
4.There the Sun Never Shines
5.Veil of Maya
6.Ageless Consciousness, I Am
7.Meditations on the Mahavakya
8.Aham Brahmasmi
9.Shivoham
10.In the Fourth Quarter: Turiya

External Links:

Official Site