Karnage, a four-piece metal band from Kottayam, which was born on March is on a winning streak. Having won the first prize in various inter-college competitions, Karnage has already composed four tracks. “The band was actually formed as a collision product of two bands — Outcry (a metal band) and Thook (a Malayalam rock band). I and a group of my seniors formed ‘Outcry’ but when my seniors left, the band was dismantled. At that time Thook was functioning. So I joined them and we formed a heavy metal band,” says drummer Abil Asok.
The band, which draws inspiration from Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Megadeth, plays old school heavy metal. Vocalist Rohan Mathew says, “Usually most of the heavy metal bands focus on growls and screams in their compositions but we are old school. We give importance to good musical pieces and do not compromise on technical aspects.” Other members of the band are Dhananjay Neelakantan on guitars and Deepu S
on bass guitar. All the four are students of Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology (RIT), Kottayam, and carry out their jamming sessions in the college hostel. They are also inspired by Chaos, a band based in Thiruvanathapuram.
On their compositions, Rohan, who also pens the songs says, “Our first song is Girl down the road. The song is about a girl who ditches her boyfriend. Second song is called Life is a bitch. We then moved on to create songs that speak on socially-relevant issues. The band’s third song, Mist of red deals with college-politics and highlights basic political issues and our fourth composition Paradise in a Valley is about Malala Yousafzai.” The band which has won competitions held in Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, SCMS Engineering College Ernakulam, College of Engineering, Perumon, is looking forward to performing in IIT Madras’ Saarang and is working on three compositions.
— sanjanam698@gmail.com