While India's upstarts have always had false hopes of 'making it' (whatever that means in this context) with mediocre equipment and participating in shitty college competitions, this one came as a big surprise. I mean, why would a bunch of seemingly normal metal kids have any false hope of ladyboys? Upon closer inspection (read: after wearing contact lenses) though, it becomes embarrassingly clear that I got the title trantastically wrong, and an even closer inspection (read: play the damn CD) lead me to some of the better music that I've heard coming from a local band, metal or not.

This is Theorized, part of the new breed of Bangalore metal bands that are out to help each other and play their hearts out, you know...like in a scene. Theorized plays a brand of aggressive, groovy and old school thrash metal, but without too many ah-that-riff-sounds-like-so-and-so that happens all the time with these already tired revivalists. The riffs keep coming at you and if you thought the first riff from the first song was great and that they've probably put their best as the opener, you've got it wrong. There are ballsy and more melodic style riffs, with intelligent song structures and arrangements that are found throughout this debut EP.

Another cool thing about them is, they actually make use of two guitars with sweet harmonies, interplays and smartly structured rhythms (like on Dark Incarnation's ending), and to round it off, the solos seem to have a strong Alex Skolnick influence going on (like on Blackout's excellent outro) with the oddball angular phrasing that he's trademarked.

After being a bit apprehensive to open this package in the first place, I quickly found myself giving this a few listens back to back, a couple more listens while driving around, a couple more when  friends came over to show them how local guys have managed to get right what many signed revivalists of today haven't, and a few more to make sure these guys are not just good for India's standards, but good. On the downside though, the vocalist seems to think he's in a death metal band while the rest don't, and this can get over the top at times. That, and they waste a good minute or so doing the intro. Intros work at times for sure, but it's pointless to have a one minute+ intro for a four song to-the-point thrash metal album, especially when the song that follows has its own intro as well. This could've seriously been a better listening experience with that chopped off. 

Check these guys out. I'm rooting for a full length album soon from this band, this time with real drums. Till then, this'll do fine.



Year of Release: 2009
Label: Self