### Amogh Symphony: Abolishing the obsolete system

#### 20/06/12 || BamaHammer

Hold onto your bollywoodie. I’m about to praise another badass Indian metal band. Amogh Symphony is their name, and blowing your mind is their game. “Abolishing the obsolete system” is the first full-length album by the two-man outfit out of Mumbai, and the duo of Vishal Singh and Roberto Narain have smelted this squirming mass of music out of technical death metal, electronica and techno, atmospheric drone, and smooth jazz. It’s not the most fantastic or brutal album you’ll ever hear, but it’s so interesting that it’s more than worth your time for a listen.

Though relatively short (just shy of 34 minutes), the Amogh Symphony rollercoaster of sound and music brings more ideas and facets to you that you can really even handle, so the length is probably just right. After a boring, semi-pointless 3-minute introduction, things get started with “Cyborg Activation (Last Human Civilization)”, which is quite simply a musical adventure that I thoroughly enjoyed from the first time I even heard it. It kicks off with fantastic death metal riffing, a popping, trebly bass line, and extremely tight (and almost fake sounding) drumming before giving way to a vast, spacey electronic atmospheric part. That honestly should give you a good idea of what you can expect from the rest of the album.

When AS has their phasers set to “br00tal”, they actually remind me a lot of Necrophagist very often in the way that the riffs are oddly timed and rhythmically difficult to follow at first, but there is a lot of groove peppered throughout to keep you interested. Everything is done exceptionally tightly, and it even teeters into the realms of inspiring some incredulity from me because it’s just a little too good. Nevertheless, this is some impressively formulated stuff from a songwriting standpoint with or without an inordinate amount of studio tomfoolery.

The softer, electronically programmed atmospheric parts are frequent and very good as well, treating you with much needed breaks from the incessant instrumental wankery that goes on. Some obviously serve as a means to get from one riff or movement to the next, but others are so vast and expansive that they serve to put you in a trance-like state or even another place altogether mentally, which is always a cool feeling when listening to this kind of stuff.

It’s difficult to listen to their jazzy moments and not be reminded of Cynic’s “Focus” in some way, but even those parts are fantastic and seem pretty original and entertaining. The noodling guitar solos can approach cheesiness, but they never go on for very long. They throw a lot at you in a short time, leaving you with a multitude of emotions and feelings that you’re not really sure what to do with when it’s over. If you’re anything like me, you’ll listen to the album, ask yourself, “What the fuck just happened?”, and then listen to it again. And again.

One thing that may prove to be a big turn-off for many potential listeners is the lack of vocals. If instrumental metal in the vein of a band like Blotted Science pisses you off (and I know there are those of you who do feel that way), then you won’t like this. It’s essentially a musical talent pissing contest, but it just so happens that it’s actually really good. If you like technical, progressive instrumental music, immerse yourself in the Amogh Symphony, if only for a little while. Hail India.

Note from the artist: “Drums in “Abolishing the obsolete system” were not played by Roberto Narain. They were played by Vishal J. Singh.”

- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: Platinum Selling Artist
- Website: Amogh Symphony MySpace
- Band
- Vishal J. Singh: guitars, bass, programming vocals
- Roberto Narain: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Intro – Opus After Genocide
- 02. Cyborg Activation (Last Human Civilization)
- 03. Greenhouse Effect
- 04. Abolishing the Obsolete System
- 05. Phase Canceled (Operation Anti-Cyborg)
- 06. Swallowing the Infected Sun
- 07. Post War Symphony