Ayodhya Burns EP, 2010

"If there is anything that the year of 2010 has taught us, then it must be that India, with releases like Albatross' "Dinner Is You", Devoid's "A God's Lie", and Demonic Resurrection's "The Return to Darkness" (and a backdrops of earlier releases by Indian artists such as the prog/tech death metallers Myndsnare, the brutal death metal project Reptilian death and melodeath act Acrid Semblance) is a metal force to be reckoned with all over the metal spectrum.

Enter Heathen Beast, an Indian blackened death metal (or deathened blacke metal, I'm not sure) from Mumbai with their 2010 EP "Ayodhya Burns", which contains three tracks. And, boy do those tracks rock! This is really quality extreme metal of the kind that I really enjoy. The music falls somewhere between black metal, death metal and thrash metal (but is more or less anchored in black metal, I guess), and it is quite varied oscillating between black metal, death metal and thrash metal style riffs, which really makes this EP and enjoyable listen.

There is also a bit of melody fused into the otherwise brutal and extreme music - just check out the almost epic guitar melody in the beginning of "Blind Faith", before it explodes into a lethal cocktail of blastbeats and heavy riffs - a brilliant piece of extreme music if you ask me. The second track "Religious Genocide" strikes me as being ore of a death-thrash (mostly on the death side though) track, which makes great use of both repetition and variation, and simplicity and technicality. This truly is another enjoyable track, and the title track continues along the same lines of brutality and variation.

The production is a bit raw, but still, I think the level of quality to it really fits the nature of the music very well.

The cultural grounding in Indian culture of the band's atheistic and anti-religious texts is also interesting and is an example of one of the things I typically appreciate in this day and age of the globalization of metal.

Based on this EP, all things Heathen Beast really look promising. I hope they'll be signed by a label soon, and I look forward to hearing their future output.

This EP is recommended to anyone who likes death metal, black metal, that metal and the no-man's land of brutality in between. "Ayodhya Burns" is simply a brilliant release which enriches the world of extreme metal.

(review originally posted on metalmusicarchives.com)"