Unseen Underground Pub Fest, Chennai (Gig Review)

Hope that, you guys remember the event Unseen Underground Pub Fest, Chennai. "Unseen Underground is a non profitable organization working towards the welfare of Indian Bands and promotes good music. Organizing shows to give platform for the upcoming bands that really deserve to display their talents in Unseen Underground’s arena.".... Here is the review of the Unseen Underground Pub Fest, Chennai. I know, its a bit late and I am really sorry for that.... Still, you can enjoy it as music and its stuffs never gets old ...KEEP ROCKING

The fifth edition of Unseen Underground Pub Fest underwent at Geoffrey's pub last Sunday was nothing less than a complete extreme metal treat for the Chennai fans. The gig was sponsored by Kingfisher, co-sponsored by Levis Strauss *Signature* and Lavazza, supported by HMI guitars, SS Music and Radiomirchi 98.3FM. The gig featured four extreme metal bands - two Bangalore and two more from Chennai. All the four bands displayed their unique talent in their own sub-genre of metal. They all stood to their reputation of delivering their best heavy numbers to the crowd and keeping them wild until the end of the show. Heavy rainfall did not stop the local metal heads to gather at Geoffrey's. It was a good number turned out for an underground metal event. HMI’s new rage of Metal guitar display in the venue added extra attraction to the ambience of the place. Many aspired musicians tried their hands on the HMI guitars and special mention Shri (Blind Image) replaced his ESP guitar with HMI 4RR32 and Madhav (Escher’s Knot/Theorized) used HMI Prima HP5C bass for the entire show.


Escher's Knot opened the gig with their third consecutive appearance in Unseen Underground Pub Fest. They started with a cover song by Textures called Drive. With Textures confirming recently about their performance in India soon for the Deccan Rock Fest, this cover song gave the taste of their music to the local crowd. The shouting style of hardcore vocals and the driving guitar riffs provided an excellent head banging experience. The next one was their own composition called This Page Has Been Intentionally Left Blank. Abhijeet expressed his skills in vocal varieties, right from black metal style screeches to death metal's trade mark growls. Then they followed with Break The Cypher and then with The Mayan Calendar two tight tracks delivered without a flaw. Sepultura's Territory was played next. This song is not new for the Chennai metal heads as it has been played in almost all the gigs featuring Manu as the drummer. The band had very little place on stage as the crowd shrank the place as they moved forward in a mosh. Finally they finished their set list with Up For Nothing.

The next band on stage was Bangalore based brutal death metal fit Abandoned Agony. It was complete brutality at Geoffrey's. This band reminded plenty of Cannibal Corpse especially with their short evil guitar solo riffs. Their first song was their title song from their only demo album Infected Unborn. It was a pleasant shock to the crowd to hear brutal death metal. The next song was Genocide, which is again a very typical death metal song with merciless brutality. Then they followed with three quick numbers Terror Assassination, Sadistic Pleasure, and Deformed. The vocalist Rajesh also took the bass guitar duties. He made it look very easy, which is normally not for an extreme metal band. Then there was a Cannibal Corpse called Skull Full of Maggots. It was a flawless performance. The only thing missed is their second guitarist to fill the blank areas during the short solos. Their last song was Barbaric Killing, probably the lengthiest song in their set list. It started smoothly and all the way to back to violence. Good tight performance overall.


Blind Image released their first album at Unseen Underground Pub Fest II and they are back to edition 5 to promote their recent second full length album More Than Human. They started with the title song from the album. It clearly showed a huge change in their sound from their previous album. Blind Image has evolved a long way and now they moved on to progressive hardcore metal in their experimental music journey. The melodic interludes are new addition to their music. Then the next track was Deciphered. The band did not over-leverage on their ability to do it all the time with the necessary distinction and elegance of their instrument handing capabilities. Then they satisfied the longing crowd's request by playing a Lamb of God cover called Black Label. Ominous was the next track. It build up the necessary tempo and aggression like slow motion adrenaline. Then they followed with Now You Have Got Something To Die For, a good headbanger from Lamb of God. Crowd was very excited to hear Lamb of God cover again. They finished off with Glitch In The System but there wasn't any in their music.

The last band on stage was thrash metal band Theorized from Bangalore. This band has a good fan base in Chennai. It was a treat to see them live. First song in their set list was Dark Incarnation. There is no need to explain how old-school metal should sound like when you have Theorized on stage. It was more than just perfect. Next two tracks were Raise The Dead and Thought Experiment. The crowd was not at all tired even after listening to three extreme metal bands on stage. It was evident when a huge mosh almost dismounted a huge standing loudspeaker. The band didn't give rest to them as they followed with Death's Pull The Plug. The old-school metal fans had a good treat listening to this masterpiece. Their last two songs were Blackout and Venomous Tormentia. On the whole this is one band everyone should look forward for their future work.

It will not be a long wait until the next edition of the fest as the organizers seems to be doing it every month bigger and better every time. If you haven't been there for the previous fests then you better start looking out for the next announcement from Unseen Underground

Thanks to Nicky for this great review.

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