Featuring - Spiked Crib (Mumbai), Dhishti (Colombo, Sri Lanka), 1833 AD (New Delhi) and Stark Denial (Mumbai)
Black Metal Krieg took place on 26th December 2010 at B69, Mumbai.
It was the first ever all-Black Metal gig in the country featuring 3 bands from India and one from the neighbouring country of Sri Lanka.
The gig started off with the well known local band Spiked Crib. From what I had heard earlier, the band usually had plenty of loose and rough edges in their live gigs. They are supposedly a Symphonic Black Metal band, so my expectations from them were lowered at first. But when they started playing, my impression changed completely. Gareth, the vocalist is a good frontman and has a very good stage presence and vocal skills. The riffs are catchy and the keyboards were used to create atmosphere and were rather drowned instead of taking the centre stage and play mindlessly and annoyingly, like Children of Bodom or Dimmu Borgir.
They played a cover of Fear of the Dark to please the crowd, and succeeded at doing so.
The next band to play was Dhishti from Sri Lanka. They played an Atmopsheric/Depressive Black metal which sounded a lot like Burzum, Anti, Nyktalgia, etc. They came to the stage in corpse paint and maulers. Their song usually consisted of 2-3 droning guitar riffs and created a haunting atmosphere in the venue. The vocalist's shrieks were sick. Sicker and more tortured than Nattramn, or Trist or Desolate, and the vocals were the best thing about the band. Not saying that other elements were bad, though. They played a cover of Burzum's Dunkelheit with guest vocals from Kunal Gonsalves of Stark Denial. Overall, they were my second favourite band to play that night.
1833 AD played next. They were the best band to play in the gig. Their sound, their skill, and their compositions, all were top notch. Their performance was the most enjoyable that night. You could feel that you're in a Black Metal gig. 1833 AD treated the crowd with 4 covers from well-known bands including Immortal, Dark Funeral, Ancient and Mayhem. I cannot put how much I enjoyed their set in words, so I'll leave it till this. By the end of their set, and with one band still left, I was drained of all my energy and wanted to leave, but wanting not to miss anything, I stayed to watch the last band.
Mumbai's own Stark Denial was the final band. This was their second gig, the first being in June. Their performance and stage presence was really good despite the fact that they played after half a year. The riffs were really well written and the sound reminded me of A Blaze In The Northern Sky-era Darkthrone which is a very good thing. They played raw, no-frills black metal, which I really liked. They even did a cover of Slayer's Raining Blood with guest vocals and a guest guitarist.
By the time Stark Denial began with their last song, I had to leave for home because I came all the way from Pune just for this gig. Final verdict : The best gig I attended till date, even if it meant spending a lot of money and time spent in travel was more than the time spent in the gig. If more such gigs take place, I would definitely not mind travelling out of the city for them.
