By GMA's Bangladesh correspondent Nabil Abaddon
 
This summer will not be the same for Bangladeshi Metal fans anymore. The titans have been summoned from the underground. The sun will fade, the earth will tremble and lightning will streak across the sky as the titans of Bengal congregate for the purpose of spreading real Metal. The Bangladesh Metal Alliance has summoned a massacre named “East Bengal Onslaught” which will take place on 26th April at the National Library Auditorium.

The Bangladesh Metal Alliance is an organization featuring some devoted Metal musicians and activists which started their journey last year with the unforgettable gig “The Bengal Regiment”. This year they are back again with a bigger endeavor and bigger arrangements with more killer bands lined up. The bill starts off with two young and talented bands called Psychotron and Burning Democracy. These bands have been making noise at local gigs for a while and its about time they played to bigger audiences. They will be followed by the promising act Sacrilege, bringing about the New Age of Thrash Metal in the house alongside the bone crushing Old School Thrashers Enmachined who will put up their axes to slay some posers.

Leading the other half of the bill, Homicide, one of the best Brutal / Technical Death Metal bands of the Indian sub-continent will be there to take the viciousness up to the next level. Expect no mercy from these lads. Then up on stage will be the bad ass Technical Thrashers Thrash who are skilled enough to knock your socks off. The show will be headlined by the mighty Bestial Death / Thrash occultists Orator and the masters of Modern Thrash Metal in Bangladesh Powersurge. Does it get any better than this? Well yes it does cause there will be ‘limited numbers’ of East Bengal Onslaught t-shirts for the fans, totally free of cost with the logos of all the bands imprinted on the back. As the production has been kept limited, they will be provided on the first come first serve basis.

The tickets have been priced at TK200 a pop, which comes with the t-shirt. There will be more band merch available at the venue. For further details and announcements go to these pages:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1432782673632706/
https://www.facebook.com/BangladeshMetalAlliance

The date was set for the extreme strike on Kolkata (Calcutta). But then the inevitable had to happen, guess it's what is keeping the Kolkata scene from rising up to the highest of levels. The headliners of Ritual Ascension Fest II, Nafarmaan, got bombed and battered on their way, you could guess that the people understood their fake nature will be ripped wide open by these guys, hence this made it impossible for the virtual earthquake to hit the Indian ground! But can this really prevent the love and support for Extreme Metal to up rise in Kolkata? Hell no! And that is how Ritual Ascension Fest II was carried out.

Yes, many didn't turn up due to various reasons, but there were enough to show their passion and rage on the Extreme Metal wagon! We all got the unfortunate news that, Nafarmaan could not make it, but those who made it were looking forward to how the Putrid Ascendancy hordes would respond and they sure didn't disappoint! Though it started a tad late, but that's bearable if the show is a great one, read on for what transpired!

The first on stage was Armament, from a general point of view we have seen how these guys have gone from strength to strength, almost making the Black / Thrash Metal genre their own for good. They started with "From The Past Comes The Storm" (Sepultura tribute), a cover which the band is perfecting with each passing day. The gig started off on a real high note, although this was a slightly down performance compared to the other Armament performances witnessed beforehand. It seems that way because of the high standards fans come to expect from these guys. Their originals as always had the crowd really gripped onto them, and the demo video of  "Gas Chamber" released a few days before only made it better. But it was really the last two covers which was the highlight for these guys. "Crush Kill Destroy" (Sarcofago tribute) left the crowd really wanting to crush down the false people, and then came the big moment. The ex-guitarist of Armament, "Syd Myers", joined forces for what was to be a nostalgic performance from Ritual Ascension Fest I. They paid tribute to the mighty "Sodom", with "Remember The Fallen", although there were a few glitches here and there but it was the moment more than the song which was important in this one! With this Armament completed a set list with full of the extra ordinary energy these guys bring on stage and some moments of absolute brilliance! They go on to play Thrashfest in Mumbai, and rest assured Mumbai will experience what the cream of the Kolkata scene can offer!

Complete Set list:-

1. From the Past Comes the Storm (Sepultura tribute).
2. Hammer of God.
3. Wings of Death. 
4. Gas Chamber.
5. Crush Kill Destroy (Sarcofago tribute).
6. Remember the Fallen (Sodom tribute).

[Armament at Ritual Ascension Fest II - War.Cult.Supremacy.]

Next up we had Kapalin. This band has gone a long way from their debut performance at Morbid Death Fest II. They understood what was missing and in time added a new vocalist, released the bassist from vocals duties and recruited a drummer to have a complete line up. Black / Death Metal has to be one of the toughest genres to play and applause must be given to the guys for attempting it. This time around Kapalin showed why they have great potential for the future. Maybe it was the occasion, maybe it was the more complete line up, maybe it was more rigorous practice but these guys sounded at least 100x better than what was displayed at MDF II. They paid some essential tributes to the gods of the genre in "Blasphemy" and "Bestial Warlust" by covering "War Command" and "Till The End" respectively. In amongst these gems they inserted their originals filled with rawness in the form of "World War III" (original, not the Exciter number), "Warstrike", but the best moment of their performance was the original "Funeral Sleep". This is the number to really look out for. Overall a much tighter performance and it will be really interesting to see how these guys go about in the future!

Complete Set list:-

1. Intro
2. War Command - (Blashphemy tribute).
3. World War III
4. Warstrike
5. Till The End - (Bestial Warlust tribute).
6. Funeral Sleep
7. War.Terror.Rape.

[Necrodeity at Ritual Ascension Fest II - War.Cult.Supremacy.]

Then we had the guys in Purgation hitting the stage. Fresh from their debut EP release "Exterminated Malfeasance" and the epic Banish the Posers Fest, Bangladesh unleashed their brutality with full force! Like Kapalin, there was major improvements in the performance by these guys from last time. Maybe it's the effect of the Bangladeshi winds which have helped these guys grow even further! They played their originals which all featured on the EP and also unleashed a new song which they just started working on about 2 weeks ago, and by the look of it something really cool waited on the other side, after the song is completely worked upon! Purgation also covered the song which is now almost a necessity in every Purgation performance, "Charred Remains" from Death Metal masters Autopsy. Overall a tidy performance and would be really cool to see how Purgation goes about their new Original(s) and probably a full length is not far off!

Complete Set list:-

1. Uncanny Obsession
2. Repugnant Flesh
   
3. Charred Remains (Autopsy Tribute).
4. Untitled New Original.
5. Immaculate
6. System Impaled
7. Communal Carnage
   

It was the 15th June, 2013 when the unholy show was organized at the heart of the Bangladesh capital: Dhaka. The gig was at the Russian Cultural Center Auditorium and was named ‘The Bengal Regiment’, inspired or borrowed from the band who taught Bangladeshi metalheads the art of extreme metal for the last 9 years; Severe Dementia. But their journey has come to a halt as the band decided not to continue without their vocalist or perhaps go for a long hiatus. Thus the show was organized by the Bangladesh Metal Alliance (BMA) to pay a grand homage to the band. For a lot of the readers, a poverty and corruption-stricken country like Bangladesh may not be a considerable place for extreme metal music, but to let them know, there is a strong underground metal scene going ever since the late 80’s. Now there are bands for every sub-genre of metal in Bangladesh.

Coming back to the show, it was put up by the devoted and hard working organizers of BMA and had five of the most promising metal acts in Bangladesh to support Severe Dementia: Thrash, Dissector, Homicide, Sacrilege and Exalter. None of them failed to desecrate the venue with their technical efficiency and musical savagery. Then it was time for Severe Dementia to come up on stage and as they started off with their new numbers and went off to their old songs from the EP, they also performed a jaw dropping Death cover, "Bite The Pain", which was enough to knock everyone's socks off! The show was a success and the vocalist Shawki Ahmed paid his final gratitude's to the fans for the support all these years and wished the five young guns all the best.

Muktadir Anzan, one of the organizers spoke to GMA's Nabil Abaddon: “This show was meant to be a remarkable one and a tribute to Severe Dementia as their show before their long break. This show will be presented in a DVD. The whole show has been captured by Mithonomia Production House and will be released as a full length DVD. This will also include raw footage from Severe Dementia interviews, updates and some of their live extra footage alongside the whole show footage of the Bengal Ragiment, which means the other five bands as well!“ So much for the Severe Dementia fans home and abroad, isn't it?

Severe Dementia, formerly known as 666, the pioneers of Bangladeshi extreme metal scene was the first ever metal band in Bangladesh to cut a foreign record label deal to perform outside the country. Severe Dementia, formed in January 2004, released their 1st and only EP “Epitaph of Plassey” via a split album “Rise of the Eastern Blood”, which they shared with bands like Demonic Resurrection (India), Howl (Pakistan) and Helmksey (Singapore). The album was released by Demonstealer Records (India). The band has performed all around Bangladesh and also headlined some metal fests like Resurrection Fest (India), Ides of March (Nepal), Nokia IAC, Metal Morgue (BD) and many more. After 9 years of mayhem, they have decided to put a lid on as their vocalist Shawki Ahmed is leaving the country to pursue his studies. Though the band promises to come back to life as soon as their vocalist returns, but it still remains a mystery to the die hard fans of the band as to why they did not get a guest vocalist aboard till Shawki returns or release another EP or a much awaited full length album.

By Nabil Abaddon (GMA's Bangladesh correspondent)

https://www.facebook.com/severedementia?ref=ts&fref=ts