It is time to glance our third eyes upon the most deplorable facets of the Samsara cycle and strap in for another bout of Third-World Esoterrorism! That’s right, a new and highly anticipated release from a contingent act within the Kolkata Inner Order Propaganda is upon us. The Inner Order, for the uninitiated, is a circle of War Metal and Harsh Noise artists based in Kolkata, West Bengal. The new release in question is none other than the long-awaited debut full-length album from Nirriti. Having released their debut EP back in 2020, the band caused quite a stir within the War Metal underground with their unforgiving, harsh, and deranged breed of raw, psychotic savagery. It was a strange and curious release from the fantastic Kolkata circle, and fans of the EP were left wondering if Nirriti would ever again unleash more of their ragas of cosmic annihilation. Well, it seems that at last, those distorted de-tuned sarangis have sounded their sheep’s gut strings once again to charm forth this savage trio for another round of serenading the Hindu deity of decay and celestial chaos.
Opening the gates of purgatorial wrath is the track entitled ‘Mandukya, The Primordial Toad Croaks at The Outer Edge of Sushupti’, A sitar motif opens the record whilst a spoken-word sample orates words pertaining to an ‘absolute truth’, amongst other metaphysical references. Shortly thereafter, the band arrives, sounding cold, despondent, harsh, and loathsome. The familiar tinny percussion thrashes away relentlessly, and unintelligible vocals weave around the mix with added modulation effects. The song neglects virtually all melodic sensibility in favour of a sound palette that feels as if a cold and dark void is slowly opening up in front of you. Track two continues this colourless maelstrom with even more heft and guitars that screech away in the background as if the strings are being violently abused by a demonic Rakshasa. It doesn’t require much traversal into the record’s runtime to gauge the intention of this album. In a similar way to how the iconic Spanish Blackened Death / War Metal outfit Teitanblood is often described as being akin to the abyss staring back into you, Nirriti sounds like the equivalent of you being forced to serve a great many eons within the terrifying Hindu hell realm of Naraka.
From here on out, until the record’s closing moments, the band does little to ease the chaotic tension. Whilst the overall harsh and strangely bewitching sound of this calculated disorder is impressive, it only takes the record a few tracks to really demonstrate the majority of what the album has to offer. This is somewhat of a shame to me, as I was hoping for more variation or strange interludes in order to encourage my ears to remain glued to the album from start to finish. This apparent one-dimensionality does little to command my attention past the first three or so tracks, and also the vocal modulations, which are a permanent fixture of the album’s vox, do grow quite tiresome.
I was excited for the release of this new Nirriti record. My enjoyment of their EP definitely put them on the radar for me within the Indian extreme metal underground. In terms of concept and artwork stylings, the band are as curiously unsettling to me as their Inner Order brethren Tetragrammacide. However, this being an article of music discourse, I must judge this release on the merit of the tracks. There are lots of malicious and esoteric ideas brought to the table here by some bouts of creative soundplay and the band’s anti-music guitar abstractions. However, those facets alone are not quite enough to warrant my front to back excitement from the album’s overall linearity.
