ALBUM REVIEW: Rakshak – Bloodywood

Time has lost all meaning thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. It feels like only yesterday that New Delhi metal sensations BLOODYWOOD were sending the internet into a frenzy, but it was actually three years ago. When the music video for Ari Ari went viral, it turned them into the great big hope of India’s rich metal scene. They had their first world tour, put in a barnstorming set at Germany’s Wacken Open Air and looked set to go interstellar. But as the months and years ticked by, there was still no full-length album to back them up, just the occasional single.

Thankfully, this looks to have been a blessing in disguise. When they first shot to fame, they were still a relatively new band trying to find their feet. Their fusion of traditional Indian folk music and metal wasn’t fully formed and rapper Raoul Kerr was a guest vocalist, not the full-time member he is now. If they’d rushed out a cash-grab, they could all too easily have become a flash-in-the-pan and vanished back into obscurity.

Whether it was by design or the vagaries of fate though, Rakshak has taken three years to come together and the wait was worth it. This no flavour of the month record from an in-over-their-heads novelty act, it’s a confident and hugely entertaining rock album. It’s bursting with the sort of energy that the likes of CRYSTAL LAKE and CROSSFAITH are renowned for, and their unique style is fresh and distinctive. This is almost certainly going to set dance floors alight and turn packed gig venues into chaos. It’s the kind of record that makes writers wish their employers didn’t have a ‘no swearing’ policy in place so they could express their enthusiasm more bluntly. It flipping rules motherfunster.

It’s obvious just from glancing at the track-list that BLOODYWOOD are proudly confident of their abilities; their breakthrough hit isn’t on here. Ari Ari isn’t included, but it also isn’t missed. The rest of their material is equally good and in many cases, surpasses their most famous song. Gaddaar is an incendiary opener; an electrically charged macho anthem with a lung-bursting chorus. Kerr sounds like the rap equivalent of Jamie Jasta, while co-vocalist Jayant Bhadula switches between lion roars and angelic-crooning to deliver a phenomenal, arena-eyeing neck-breaker.

Aaj keeps the adrenaline pumping and the pace high, while Zanjeero Se has a brief flirtation with balladry. By the time the pit-igniting, album highlight Machi Bhasad arrives, Rakshak already feels like a classic. There are socially-conscious lyrics, audience-participation sections and a feverish excitement running through it. There is the occasional cringeworthy line, but the sheer life-affirming exuberance of it all makes them easy to forgive.

By the time the album ends in Chakh Le’s demented fist-swinger, BLOODYWOOD have proven the hype is justified. It’s a throwback to the “everything goes” approach of the mid-90s when metal merged with whatever musical genre happened to be wandering past at the time, but is also a well-written, convincing statement of intent. This is 48 minutes of politically minded rabble-rousing and it’s going to plaster smiles across a lot of faces. Expect a riot.

Rating: 9/10

Rakshak is set for release on February 18th via self-release.

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