When Scribe announced that their new album Confect would be released as a free download, the news came as a surprise. For one, Scribe is at the forefront of the much maligned Indian metal scene. Their live act is frenetic and belies a tightness that’s meant for bigger things. So for the album to be released free of cost puts a lot of pressure on the band.

Indian bands are used to putting pressure on themselves. The result, quite often, is music that is ‘forced’ and impersonal; the opportunity to connect with the audience coming only through heavy choruses and generic references to issues that we’re not really facing. ‘Big’ acts like Pentagram and Shaa’ir + Func have fallen prey to this and very few acts manage to jump the shark to deeper ground. And then there’s the other train of thought that believes Indian rock/metal needs to represent Indian culture via regional language or regional instrument. Eventually, though there is much Indian independent music on offer, very little of it is in any way unique. One listens to Indian music in this form with a different ear than one listens to an international release.

Which is why Confect is more important than just the full length studio debut of a top Indian metal act.

Read the complete review + Indiecision after the break.

There’s a laundry list of things that Scribe have got right with this album, but perhaps the most important is its lack of pretence; this even with its liberal usage of dialogue from The Matrix on the album opener ‘Analyze This’. With intense riffage and Vishwesh’s malleable vocals (both growled and ‘clean) this is a pretty hardcore metal release. It begs comparison with several international hardcore acts and yet is strangely Indian. Confect is brazen with its lyrics. It guffaws, it hits hard, it relates. The references are simple, interspersed with rich melodies and, as on ‘Ate a Banana’, Bollywood lyrics. The result is an album you can listen to without feeling that the band has tried too hard.

Prashant and Akshay’s guitar work is angular and complex. They add a lot of character to Vishwesh’s vocals especially in songs like ‘Magpie’ and ‘The Kids’. Vishwesh’s vocals are visceral. The vocal work on (the aptly titled) ‘Nobody Listens To The Vocalist’ is particularly noteworthy. The lyrics cut through the rhythm section even with the guitars taking huge leaps in the background. The mix of growls and clean vocals engages the listener despite a strong musical performance.

It’s this kind of collaborative product of the members of the band that makes Confect complete. Even the interlude ‘Dr Salafya and The Tea Parody’ finds its own place in the album, if just as an entertaining let up to the intense metal assault. Though some parts of songs, like the outros to ‘The Kids’ and ‘Pomari Begattari’, seem excessive, these are easily forgiven.

Confect is brash, hard hitting and loud. This is the new face of Indian metal.

Indiecision: A-