ABSENCE OF LIGHT — Vyom Chakra (review)

ABSENCE OF LIGHT — Vyom Chakra album cover

Album · 2013 · Melodic Death Metal

4/5 · 2020-05-13
siLLy puPPy

Africa has probably been the continent of the world that has attracted the least amount of interest in metal music given the short list of bands that have emerged from the 54 nations on the world’s second largest continent in both terms of size and population. Despite that fact there have been a number of bands springing up in the new millennium with nations like Botswana having more than its fair share of metal bands. In recent years Kenya has seen a few excellent bands spring up. ABSENCE OF LIGHT comes from Nairobi and although unlike other Kenyan metal bands such as In Oath, Lust Of A Dying Breed and Last Year’s Tragedy, this band consists of three ethnically Indian musicians whose ancestors settled in Africa.

Having formed in 2009 in Kenya’s capital city, ABSENCE OF LIGHT consists of Shiv Mandavia (vocals, bass), Angad Gupta (guitar) and Jay Patel (guitar). The band chooses to enlist the services of session drummers for the percussion. Despite having been around for over ten years now the band hasn’t exactly been prolific and the short canon itself is a little confusing as yo will instantly see that there is an EP from 2013 titled VYOM CHAKRA as well as a full-length album of the same name from 2013. This may have been a marketing no-no but is easily explained by the fact that the 2011 EP has five tracks and the 2013 album has the same five tracks plus five new ones.

While most African metal can be a bit on the generic side, ABSENCE OF LIGHT is an exciting even refreshing exception. Sounding most like a mix of “Demigod” era Behemoth and the atmospheric eeriness of Nile but using ancient Indian atmospheric textures instead of Egyptian scales, ABSENCE OF LIGHT is the real deal with three competent musicians who can play in the big boyz’ club and craft interesting compositions that keep me engaged for the entire run of the album. Graced with a decent production job, VYOM CHAKRA which means “Never Ending Sky” or “Cycle” in the ancient Sanskrit language is a major chug-fest with incessant rampaging guitar riffs in a blackened death metal march along with an explosive bass and blastbeat drumming fury explosiveness. While Mandavia’s vocal growls do sound a bit like Nergal’s especially on the final Behemoth cover track of “Demigod,” he still delivers some unexpected surprises by hitting an even lower growlier register.

The album is roughly divided into vocal tracks and instrumentals. The vocal tracks are the most ferociously brutal death metal with distinct melodies but nothing about this one is sugary or sweet. Think more Behemoth than Amon Amarth and you can’t go wrong however some of the calmer spaced out sections are more in the vein of Nile’s excursions into ethnic wonderlands. While these comparisons are somewhat of a rough guide, the rhythmic execution and time signatures are quite unlike either Behemoth or Nile and ABSENCE OF LIGHT succeeds in sounding very unique. There are many rhythmic layers to the music. There is a basic chord progression but also often frenetic hammer-on guitar frenzies that add extra layers of freneticism however the military fire drumming extremism is right out of the “Demigod” playbook. This is also a band that knows how to implement key moments of silence as well as contrast with differing dueling guitar showmanship.

The first five tracks that appear on the EP version of VYOM CHAKRA are vocal oriented as is the tenth track which covers “Demigod” but the remaining are instrumental with the focus on the guitar antics and atmospheric developments. “Brahmasta” is by far the most brutal of these and “Skanda, I” offers the most contemplative excursions into an ancient raga sounding buildup that offers eerie atmospheric accompaniments. If such a thing as atmospheric death metal existed then that would be the perfect tag for this album because unlike black metal, death metal usually eschews these icy extras unless it goes full on symphonic such as with Fleshgod Apocalypse or Septicflesh. Overall this is an impressive album which is even more interesting simply because it emerged from the African continent, a land from where i love the traditional folk musical styles but haven’t been overly impressed with any of the metal acts so far. ABSENCE OF LIGHT is a clear reminder that excellent metal bands can literally emerge from the least expected places. I do hope there is as followup to this fine album.