BANGLADESHI DEATH METAL OVERLORDS 'NEKROHOWL' INVADE KOLKATA FOR BLACK MASS RITUAL ON 24TH DEC! BAND INTERVIEW

BANGLADESH was recently on everyone’s radar worldwide for the heinous terrorist attack at Gulshan’s Holey Artisan Bakery. But this surely was not the first atrocious event to occur there as the country had seen an endless series of catastrophic phenomenons, bloodsheds and turmoils, be it the infamous famine or neverending inter-religious riots, be it ongoing unstable political rampages or abysmal third-world economy and corruption, Bangladesh had survived it all and channeled the sufferings and the struggles transmuted through its art and specially through subcultures like its bursting underground Heavy Metal scene. The capital city of Bangladesh, Dhaka, is surely one the most active and dominant underground epicenters in whole of Asia. It had produced remarkable bands such as ROCKSTRATA, WEAPON, ORATOR, NAFARMAAN, BARZAK, NUCLEAR WINTER, MORBIDITY, ENMACHINED, HOMICIDE, SURTUR, BURIAL DUST, ETERNAL ARMAGEDDON, WARHOUND & SEVERE DEMENTIA just to name a few. Lyrically blasphemous or opposing societal hypocrisy and rejecting patriarchy and norms, Bangladeshi Metal is fast, aggressive and furious, be it thrash metal, black metal or death metal genre and and the latter has the newest revered entity to sustain and flourish this country’s Metal Legacy - NEKROHOWL!
NEKROHOWL play DEATH METAL with sheer intensity, velocity and authenticity and have released their critically acclaimed demo this year which had everyone talking. Delivered with utmost sincerity & brutality and without fears, pretention & compromises, this rehearsal demo is just a glimpse of the forthcoming annihilation which is a full length album! 
Putrid Ascendancy and Hellion Distro are proud to announce that NEKROHOWL shall be invade India for the very first time to play at BLACK MASS RITUAL  festival to be held at Sujata Sadan, Kolkata on 24^th of December, 2016. We recently interrogated the band as a part of the BLACK MASS RITUAL promotion and we discussed many things from bands music to religious atrocities to band’s own ideology! Read it all here.

PA: Greetings NEKROHOWL. Let’s begin this interview with you telling us a brief introduction to the band and the purpose behind creating such caustic audial vehemence?

NEKROHOWL: Greetings to you brother. The first thing we want everyone to know that we are not a super group or a project based band nor did we start from the Death Tribute show by BMA. Because someone wrote like that. but it is not so. We all played in that show and nothing more than that. Most of our members are longtime friends from school days. Even our guitarist and vocalist had a band previously called Retaliation. All of us grew up listening together, getting high together, going to shows together and hanging out together. All these made a common taste of music in us but we all played in different killer bands like Homicide, Dissector, Abominable Carnivore and Enmachined. Then we started to realize we should make use of this friendship and form a common musical platform to continue the musical journey together. And there was never a confusion about what to play. Because we knew we are going to play classic 90s death metal without any doubt. Thus came our tonality which represents the true ways of classic era of death metal which is raw destructive and much attacking by means of extremity. and it is the way we like it.            

PA: What are the main influences for the band and what direction the band strives to proceed towards?

NEKROHOWL:  It is really hard to mention few bands you know. We like all the classic death metal bands. But if you want to know about our primary influences we would like to mention Morbid Angel, Gorguts, Immolation, Suffocation, Atheist, Demilich, Sadistic Intent, Nihilist, Bolt Thrower, Sinister, Death, Dismember and many more I just can’t recall at the moment. To be comprehensive, all the classic death metal bands of 80s and 90s from the true route of death metal are our influences ha ha.

PA: Are lyrics equally important to you, as in more ideological aspect, for example very nihilistic and extreme ideology that many death and black metal bands keep? Who writes the lyric and what is the main theme so far? Do you have any interest in politics?

NEKROHOWL: Yes, obviously. We do not play for a fuck. we have our own visions and through our music we want to share our vision and inner energy to the people listening to us. Lyrically we are not affiliated with politics. rather we try to find reality and true inner freedom. Freedom by means of sadism. because our earliest notions as mankind was quite sadistic, but as time passed we tried to enclose our wildest freedom to make the so called fucking modern civilization. We want to evoke this freedom of sadism through our music which is ancient. And the most important part of our lyrics is death. For us this is the ultimate reality. if we want to glorify anything we should glorify death instead of an imaginary person and world. we believe death is the ultimate reality and it should be glorified. We try to glorify reality and freedom of death and sadism through our music, intense and extreme form of our inner energy and free soul. our music tells about a world glorifying the death and sadism. And death is related to the absolute darkness which is also part of our musical ideology. and for nihilism we believe that every true metaller is a nihilist in his approach to life with or without having the knowledge of nihilism. metal music itself is a nihilistic approach of music by means of aggression and freedom of mind. 

PA: Talking about politics, what’s your opinion on ruling Bangladeshi Govts and policies? Also tell us about the impact of recent terror strikes in Dhaka on general citizens and metal scene? Do all of these affect your song writing? Do you think Metal underground can have a threat from extremist religious groups in future since many bands have very blasphemous image?

NEKROHOWL: To be true we don’t have any interest in our political mess. there are two groups one of them are leaders in our nations Liberation War and other one is completely radical religious minded motherfuckers who opposed our freedom as a nation. but when in power all are same fuckers doing same shits. but current govt is more liberal than the other one. As per recent terror attacks, it greatly hampered the gig arrangements. 4/5 gigs got postponed as police didn’t permit us to do so. but our organizers never gave up in fear of anything and don’t give a fuck to those bastard radical bunch of terrorists. I Don’t know much about people’s perception on that incident, but true metallers of our country do not give a fuck. Nafarmaan announced their comeback right after the day of the attack saying ‘fuck your god’. We released our demo when there were no gigs for the police obstacle. there were a lot of people at our launching just like a gig wearing black t-shirts, having pot and that too in an open street of Dhaka. That was a complete different experience to get together after along time as there were no gigs right then.It was the first chance for all of us to get together again after the attack and a lot of metalheads grabbed the chance to keep metal flowing. As a band we are really proud of those people who showed up on that day.  Burial Dust got threats before a show in Rajshahi, but they did go there, it was also their first show after the terror attack. Many others already have received many threats. And there will be many more to come. But it doesn’t bother any of us and nor will it. 

PA: Bangladesh has got a strong extreme metal scene for years, from BARZAK to ORATOR to NAFARMAAN, and there are many good gigs that are taking places, in last 5 years, how difficult or easy is it to form a band and keep it going? What are the main obstacles that musicians face in a band?

NEKROHOWL: Yes, we got a strong metal scene and there are many quality shows. Now-a-days it has become very easy to from a band. as there are more musicians than only listeners in our metal scene. that’s a big problem. But it is not easy to run a band. because to continue such extreme form of music needs real time and dedication, the main obstacle is money and family responsibilities. Many of very good musicians have left because of their jobs and family duties. Another prolific reason is lack of appreciation from all. We saw some bands do not get enough appreciation due to their position in a particular group. There is a clear division among the metalheads in our scene. Which is very sad thing.

PA: Talking about NEKROHOWL, what’s the significance of the band name?

NEKROHOWL:  It’s quite simple. Our bands name represents the sounds of death. Through our composition and lyrics, we try to represent the sound of the world of death.

PA: NEKROHOWL released a rehearsal demo this year, how’s the response so far? Who did the mixing and mastering? I must say it really impressed me. Any plan to re-release it in a different format?

NEKROHOWL: It’s a real pleasure to hear you liked it. Yeah, we released our demo and we have got great responses from a lot of people. We really liked it when some senior musicians of our scene appreciated our tracks and our old school ways of composition. it charged us up greatly to think more passionately about the band. We almost did nothing for mixing mastering except one or two things which is obviously done by ourselves. We made live takes for all the tracks we recorded. so what you heard is almost raw. We did not want to change or modify anything so that there will be no scope for ruining the environment we got during the live takes. we also released our demo in a 90s death metal way. We released it independently on streets. and to our utmost surprise except 4/5 all the CDs were sold on the day. We do not have any fixed plan to re-release it but if any label comes to us for that, we will definitely go for it.

PA: How is the songwriting done for NEKROHOWL? What is the most vital factor you guys keep in mind while writing a riff or a song?

NEKROHOWL: We do it in a proper band way. Each one of us contributes for writing. Each member contributes in every sector including lyrics, vocal, guitar lines, bass line, drum patterns everything. The most vital factor we consider during writing is to make sure that it satisfies our own musical desire. We always look for what we intended to do and try to maintain it without any limitation or restriction. We do it in our ways. It’s our style of playing. We try to keep the essence of classic death metal which we like the most to play or listen to,that’s it. One more thing, we try to make riffs according to the lyrics or vice versa.

PA: If you have to choose 3 bands that represents 80s,90s and modern death metal each respectively, who they would be?

NEKROHOWL:  On the basis of full length release. Morbid Angel, Immolation, Gorguts, Suffocation

PA: What are the most pivotal part of being a death metal musician? Is it the same as being a musician or you need to possess something more than the usual? What are NEKROHOWL's future plans? Are you guys writing new music for a full length maybe?

NEKROHOWL:  There are a lot of things to consider. But most important thing is the dedication and passion. It is not as easy as it looks. You need patience and true passion for death metal. It is completely a different journey than other forms of music. Most importantly it won’t give you anything except inner satisfaction. You have to give your all for the passion of death metal. It’s really hard to continue, as a musician you have to practice a lot too which also need a great deal of dedication. Above all you need to possess a liberal and aggressive mentality, obviously it has to be matched with the light of age of enlightenment. You know what I mean by this, that is freedom from any kind of dogmas whether it is religious, social or any other.

Nekrohowl is right now writing for the full length, yes you are right brother. We are done with eight songs already. We are adding little details on those and after completing a few more we will hit the studio. We hope to make the full length get released by mid of next year.

PA: Top 5 death metal albums?

NEKROHOWL:  It’s really a tough one to choose exact 5 albums. There are many more albums we like to listen. some of them are more important than these ones mentioned here but not coming right now ha ha.

·         Scream Bloody Gore (Death)

·         Altars of Madness (Morbid Angel)

·         The IVth Crusade (Bolt Thrower)

·         Unholy Cult (Immolation)

·         Considered Dead (Gorguts)  

(yet there are many more still left, if I ask you to choose any five album,can you fix it eternally? ha ha,it’s hard to choose.)

PA: We are looking forward to see you live at BLACK MASS RITUAL.. what can we expect from you guys on this christmas eve? Any last word for your fans here?

NEKROHOWL:  Yeah we are also looking forward to go there. We have heard about the madness that bands from our country had seen among the crowd before. We are really keen to appear there as well. Last word to my brothers and sisters out there that you are not fans, rather we are all brothers and sisters under one flag of true metal. Be there and get ready to die with us. we are eagerly waiting for unleashing death before you. Hails to you all. Thank you very much.!!


NEKROHOWL ON BANDCAMP:  https://nekrosadist.bandcamp.com/releases

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