The Sura’asura wars are a perpetual war fought between Devas and Asuras in hindu mythology. While Devas (a.k.a gods or Suras) represent order and light, the Asuras represent dual-faced demigods (a.k.a. demons), the bringers of chaos and power. While the Suras were usually off to a disadvantaged start, they also often had access to Amrit or the immortality elixir, which eventually (allegedly sometime around 5000 BC) led them to liberation of the three worlds – the Earth, Heaven and the underworld.
The short and vapid description of events based on the several thousand years and stories form the hindu mythology given here is the exact same war people fight every day within themselves. You’re going through a rough patch in life or your coffee was off this morning or you didn’t get enough sleep or you’re just plain miserable and someone approaches you with a question you don’t know the answer to, because you really don’t know the answer, because, you didn’t understand the question or you you just dislike the person asking for some reason even you don’t understand, so you got a couple of choices in how to answer it… usually people on the metal scene choose the most violent one, because thinking is too difficult and they want everyone to know they’re something special because they have the power.
And that’s where things get interesting. Yeah, sure, these guys have the power to scream / growl their lungs / throat out, beat / kick an innocent passer-by to oblivion and just act like orangutans to show off their power.
The struggle to regain and keep the power has lost its all meaning in recent decades if not centuries. As long everyone sees they have the power, they will be respected, admired and will have access to everything gods in mythology have, shortly put: territory which leads to abundance of food and a lot of food leads (through some ingenuity) to pussy (which will later bring an abundance of offspring, but that’s where this story takes a weird new turn which will not be discussed at this time or place). These same guys will in a couple of decades lose the control over their bladder and will start leaking from every opening they have on their bodies and someone else will have to wipe their ass for them because they’ll be incapable of doing it themselves.
Power is deceptive and what looks like power today will eventually lead into deterioration and eventually oblivion where, just like everyone else, these people won’t matter anymore. Their existence will maybe leave an image captured in time, but their work will have no value as it won’t leave anything to the people coming after them, unfortunately even within their own families.
I’ve recently come across a slightly weird motivational quote saying 1.00 to the 365th power is still 1.00, yet 1.01 to the 365th power is actually 37.8. Obviously, if you don’t understand that, I’ll just give you a hint: Consistency and you’re allegedly smart enough to figure out where I’m going with this. You yourself claimed you were this smart.
And the record I’m allegedly reviewing here? Exactly what I described above, but in aural form. I was slightly turned away by the original claim that this is a Black Metal project (seriously, there are almost more black metal projects than toe nail funghi in existence today… and most of them are just as annoying). This very young Srilankan project took things very seriously and combined the imagery from their mythology with the violent expectations from the so-called underground ‘not a scene’, bringing a small glimpse into why the subcontinental Black / Death or War Metal scene has far better music than the already stale north American ‘not a scene’ where image is already more important than the actual musical output. At this point I only hope they have the consistency to keep this vivid (and livid) presentation alive for the times to come. Let the time be on their side. (Black Mary)
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Although ‘Warfare Metal’ is only the first offering of Sura’sura from Sri Lanka, the band was already formed back in 2022. Not really sure what kept them from coming up with some recorded material before, but surely it has nothing to do with a possible process of constantly refining and re-doing parts over and over again. Named after the Sura-Asura war, a mythical conflict in Hinduism that symbolizes the battle between good and evil, order and chaos. Not a bad name for a band whose music feels like a cosmic battle in itself.
The personnel of the band is unknown to me, but Sura’sura fits well in the wave of bands coming from these regions that dwell in the most relentless and punishing depths of Extreme Metal. That specific metal scene is already small on a global scale, so let alone in a country like Sri Lanka. That makes me think that some of the people behind Sura’sura might also be involved in some of these other bands. But, that’s only guessing and pure speculation from my side.
Still, that speculation is not based purely on geographic assumptions, also on the musical side of things ‘Warfare Metal’ at least raises some suspicion of cross-pollination between bands. But, even with that in mind, Sura’sura has quite something to offer that is not exactly your everyday metal-meal.
The entire EP lasts for just over 10 minutes, but leaves quite a devastating impression. After a bit of an Ambient/Industrial intro the ‘Warfare Metal’ explodes into something that truly lived up to its name. Yet, it is not quite in the deafening Tetragrammacide way, or that of the whole Kolkata Inner Order Propaganda movement for that matter. Instead Sura’sura opts for a more clinical and mechanical sounding approach with lots of noise elements and an overall minimal character. In a way it reminds me of some of the Canadian War/Noise acts such as Tsalal, Kiloton or Complot! A cold and abrasive sound that is both suffocating and unforgiving, much like how you’d imagine a never-ending cosmic war would sound. (FelixS)
