Rudra

There are some places that surprisingly have strong black metal scenes. One such place that we've already visited a couple of times is Singapore. Another surprise is Singaporean black metal band RUDRA. Drawing on themes from Indian Hindu culture, it is a reminder that Singapore was once a British colony and that almost one-tenth of  Singapore's population is of Indian background.

Originally going by the name Rudhra and playing old-school death metal when they formed in 1992, the band has cited Slayer, Bathory, Black Sabbath, and early Sepultura as influences, among others. They took their name from one of the incarnations of the Hindu god Shiva--Rudra is a violent and destructive storm god!

Rudra's oldest recorded song,  "Armageddon"

Their first released music was the song "Armageddon," which appeared on the third volume of the Made in Singapore compilation series in 1993. As you can hear above, Rudra's early music was vicious, old-school death metal. Some of their aforementioned influences can clearly be heard.

In 1994, Rudra put out their first official demo, The Past. We can hear the band's evolution on this demo as they began to move past old-school death metal into a more melodic style that even verges on black metal in some places. In this early stage, the band didn't really stand out as incredibly unique. It would be their next phase where their sound radically transformed.

"Atman" is from the self-titled album--notice Indian melodies throughout

Band members Shiva (drums) and Kathir (bass/vocals) decided that they needed to go in a new direction: they would incorporate Indian and Eastern melodies, as well as themes and mantras from ancient Sanskrit texts. This resulted in a self-titled demo in 1997 and a self-titled album in 1998 (which contained much of the same material as the demo) that completely changed the face of extreme metal. These days, metal that incorporates non-Western elements is typically called "oriental metal", but Rudra have taken to calling their music "vedic metal" (after the Hindu holy texts, the Vedas).

In addition to drawing on the philosophy of the holy texts of Hinduism, Rudra also hails the ancient Indo-Aryan people in their music. Unlike the myths at the heart of Western racism and Nazism, Rudra recognizes the actual Aryans--a cultural people group who flourished on the Indian subcontinent millenia ago. We see this tribute in many of Rudra's songs, as well as the title of their 2001 album, The Aryan Crusade.

From The Aryan Crusade, this is "Rudrapatni"

"Ravens of Paradise" comes from their 2009 album

Rudra has continued to hone and refine their vedic metal since transitioning away from the more traditional death/black metal stylings of their early years. In the 00's, they put out a trilogy of albums with title Brahmavidya (where each of the three albums had a different subtitle). They then followed it up with what is arguably their most epic release, 2013's Rta.

An example of Rta's epicness, this is "Assault"

And to this day, Rudra still continues to churn out vedic-inspired extreme metal that transcends the black metal genre. There really is no one else quite like them. 

Select Discography:

The Past (demo) (1994)

Rudra (demo) (1997)

Metal Legion EP (split) (1998)

Rudra (full-length) (1998)

The Aryan Crusade (full-length) (2001)

Kurukshetra (full-length) (2003)

Brahmavidya: Primordial I (full-length) (2005)

Brahmavidya: Transcendental I (full-length) (2009)

Brahmavidya: Immortal I (full-length) (2011)

Next time: OBTAINED ENSLAVEMENT

Salem

Most people don't associate rock'n'roll of any kind--let alone extreme metal--with Israel or the Middle East.  There are most certainly exceptions to this, like Israeli bands like Melechesh, Bishop of Hexen, and Orphaned Land.  But ahead of all of these bands is Tel Aviv's SALEM.  They formed in 1985, and released several demos in the later 1980s before releasing full-length studio albums in the early 1990s.

Title track from their 1987 demo Destruction Till Death

After such demos as 1986's Salem, 1987's Destruction Till Death, and 1990's Millions Slaughtered, Salem managed to catch the attention of the fast-growing Norwegian scene.  Black metallers such as Mayhem's Dead and Euronymous tried to woo Salem away from the Middle East and to northern Europe in order to join the rapidly expanding Scandinavian scene.

From 1992's Creating Our Sins EP

In 1992, Salem put out the Creating Our Sins EP, and began a long and storied career of influential studio albums.  1994's Kaddish went on to be hugely important--but also controversial--in the global extreme metal world.  Controversial because of the overtly pro-Israel, Zionist lyrical content.  Many elements in the black metal underground were not comfortable with such sentiments (Burzum's Varg Vikernes allegedly sent a mailbomb to the members of Salem).

"The Fading" is off of 1994's Kaddish

Since 1994's Kaddish, Salem has produced a fairly steady stream of albums and singles.  Their style has changed somewhat, however, shifting from an old school brutal black/death sound to a more doom/death-oriented sound to a more straightforward death metal sound.  For the purposes of this black metal retrospective, their more recent work (basically since Kaddish) is not relevant--that doesn't mean it's not good, just not very black metal.

Select Discography:

Salem (demo) (1986)

Destruction Til Death (demo) (1987)

Millions Slaughtered (demo) (1989)
Promo 1989 (demo)  (1989)
Creating Our Sins 12" (1992)
Kaddish (full-length) (1994)

Next time: MORTUARY DRAPE