“We’re so aggressive even at rehearsals that we come out with bruises and bumps from our practice sessions,” says a 25-year-old metalhead about his band as we walk around a narrow lane in Putalisadak to find a quiet place to talk. “People think we’re on drugs all the time but the fact is, we’re all clean, or recovered at least.” His band members don’t make it to our rendezvous because of the confusion created by Biplab’s Nepal bandh on the day. But an hour-long conversation with Core Tamrakar, a guitarist of the band Anhur, makes this reviewer confident enough to write about them, especially after listening to their debut album “Manmade Disaster”. In an obscure ‘restaurant’ in the Kumari Hall lane, we discuss the evolution of the Nepali underground scene, the hate between fans and musicians of different sub-genres, increasing audience violence, and negative perception of underground musicians.
“Anhur is a death-core band and our music is mostly about war and its effects on mankind,” Tamrakar says. Anhur, the name of a god of war in Egyptian mythology, represents a new wave of the Nepali underground scene which has existed for the past two decades, but mostly under the shadow of mainstream music and popular songs. The band was officially formed in February 2019 by a group of friends and fellow metalheads. In a short time since its inception, it has had many heads banging to its aggressive music, while in the process also earning it many ‘haters’, Tamrakar says.
“The underground scene is not what it used to be. There is no respect for the artists and fellow musicians anymore,” says the young musician who himself grew up attending underground gigs in Kathmandu. “Some people have started doing drugs at concerts and bloody clashes in gigs have become so common I think I should wear a helmet in my next show.”
"The underground scene is not what it used to be. There is no respect for the artists and fellow musicians anymore"
Core Tamrakar
Tamrakar on guitars, another guitarist duo Rojin Gurung and Puzan Syangtang, drummer Shakti Maharjan, bassist Dinesh Shrestha and vocalist Sadan Thapa—all aged between 18 and 34—make up Anhur. Their music is fast, raw, brutal and comes with parental advisory. For those not used to listening to metal music, the band’s songs are a noisy collocation of awfully heavy guitars, blasting drums and incomprehensible vocals but for their fans, the extremity of their music and lyrics are rhythm and poetry combined.
Their debut album “Manmade Disaster” released in April this year is a typical underground production. The band home-recorded for lack of funds and Tamrakar mixed and mastered the whole album, typically in the vein of most ‘Do It Yourself’ bands here. “We do not make money from our music so we have no money to invest,” he says. “So we cut our own album from whatever resources we have and organize our own shows.”
He also narrates how he got the cover art for their debut album from a Brazilian musician in exchange for mixing and mastering 10 songs for him. Releasing the album did incur them some major expenses, Tamrakar informs, but the band managed to sell a decent number of the album as well as merchandise to recover the expenses.
“I think we are a very lucky band. We have been getting a gig every month, and our album and merch have sold out,” he says. A concert every month is a big deal in the scene where a band either organizes its own shows or waits for months to be invited to perform. For both the bands and the organizers, there is almost no returns. There is also that added risk of being branded outcasts by their families and society for the lives they chose to lead.
But Anhur keeps the glorious tradition of the Nepali underground music alive. The metal scene has seen its share of rise and fall in the past years but some bands have emerged out of the chaos to leave behind a distinctive trail for others to follow. Bands like “Underside”—which has gone international with their music—and the legendary “Ugra Karma”—which is celebrating its 20th anniversary soon and embarking on a Europe Tour—are artists these youngsters and their contemporaries look up to.
Worshipping their music like artists of any other genre, the underground bands are not after fame. Right now they are struggling to at least avoid being chastised, if not fully accepted, for their music and their lifestyle.
