KaliYuga Babalon
While continuing my search for unique underground bands I discovered one from Russia, and I discovered them purely by chance. The promotion company Grand Sounds PR passed me an email about Samadhi Sitaram’s new album and video; again I saw something in the band that fueled my curiosity. Perhaps I could make the distinction beforehand that this was something new and untried before even listening to it. Whether it was precognition or just experience, I knew this CD would appeal to me as soon as it started. The cold symphonic/metal/electronic introduction precluding Kali Yuga hooked me right away. It had that theatrical overtone I have come to appreciate a lot in underground metal. I felt I was being prepared for an album that would carry me to distant lands uninvestigated even in previous excursions into the witching hour. Kali Yuga more than fulfilled my expectations with electronic sounds, dual tightness inspired by death metal and math metal, and lyrics recited Russian by glottal, asperous vocals. This is not even mentioning the psychedelic themes joining the blast beats. Forsaking the satanic concept for shock value, Samadhi Sitaram base a concept on the prophecy of the Srimad Bhagavatam 12th chapter scripture, in which all of mankind experiences a decay in morals, ethics and spiritual values. This is far deeper than you would expect and you would have to engage in a long discussion with the band regarding this subject. The lyrics are mostly sung in Russian so I referred to the bio at Sliptrick Records as to what KaliYuga Babalon is about. The bio says the band expands on the concepts explored on this album with a series of promotional videos made for select tracks from it. Their Youtube profile has censored and uncensored versions of the videos in question. The imagery in either versions is unreal, avant garde and profound and I would recommend any of them right alongside the album for their artistic substance alone. The songs are brutal, jazzy, spacey and metaphysical with the Middle Eastern and Egyptian themes infused into the material. It’s remarkable that these compositions were written, composed and arranged by at least three band members as I gather from Sliptrick Records (vocalist Leonid Grushko, guitarist Sergey Zakharov and bassist Alexey Mosin; it’s not mentioned who else is working with them or playing drums, keys and effects). For a band interfacing groovecore, deathcore and mathcore with djent they achieve a symmetry with the heavy and electronic, and the entire recording is expressed with a high level of expertise and precision. I would say the most creative license is in Orgy (Ritual Babalon), an epic sixteen minute song showing the band at their most theatrical. KaliYuga Babalon is available in CD and digital format, so watch the videos and look into buying a copy. -Dave Wolff
Track list:
1. Intro
2. Kali Yuga
3. The Death Of A Stone
4. Apotheosis
5. Q.Prelude
6. Qliphoth
7. Orgy (Ritual Babalon)
8. Shangri La
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