The year is 2001 and the members of Dying Embrace, one of the country’s first doom metal bands, are going on a hiatus after a decade of making a name for themselves in a small but devoted circuit of fans. The reasons for disbanding were the same as they were today – to find a means of livelihood through a job. Vocalist Vikram Bhat recalls, “You couldn’t rely on pocket money, of course.”
Drummer Daniel Marc David relinquished his place in the band to move to Kolkata to train horses and bassist Jai Kumar moved to the Middle East for a job in textile engineering. Guitarist and principle songwriter Jimmy Palkhivala joined the catering industry and Bhat took on the family business of running the iconic Ullas Refreshments on MG Road.
What was the world of metal like in the first 10 years of Dying Embrace? Well, for starters, they were the only band (called Misanthrope until 1996) who played the slow, incendiary style of doom mixed with death metal. Bhat recalls their shows, “Most people’s faces would have been an exclamation mark or a question mark. They found it bizarre, but it suited us fine anyway.” In an interview in 1998, Bhat says they gave out their phone number and received numerous calls. “Kids called us to ask if we were Satanists or devil-worshippers or murderers. It was pretty hilarious,” says Bhat. In the 90s, metal was ruled by city band Millennium and the likes of Vulcan Edge and Crimson Storm. While Millennium soldiered on to become one of the oldest metal bands in the country, Bhat agrees that most bands started and ended with college.
With a few gritty, lo-fi studio releases to their name, Dying Embrace only reunited officially in 2011, when they recruited drummer Deepak Raghu, who had known Bhat through online forums, and bassist Pritham Denzil D’Souza. Incidentally, it was around the same time that Bengaluru’s other doom metal band, Bevar Sea, were finally picking up live shows and writing material. Bhat says, “Bangalore became a doom capital of sorts, Deepak was a rejuvenating force for us. He fit in like a glove.” Dying Embrace made their big stage comeback at Bangalore Open Air’s 2012 edition, going on to play club gigs that were usually co-organised by Bhat in the city.
With the audience for metal music growing a lot more compared to even a decade ago, what’s surprising is the crowd that Dying Embrace draws at their shows. While there are the old-school regulars who still attend shows, a lot of their younger, newer fans demand early material. And that’s exactly what the band did at their 25th anniversary celebration at No Limmits, Magrath Road, last week.
Bhat says, “Jimmy decided to play material from the first era, so we didn’t play most of ‘the classics’, but songs like ‘Grotesque Entity’ and ‘The Passing Away’.”
They don’t have any new material planned as yet, with both Bhat and Palkhivala concentrating on their grind band Gruesome Malady’s upcoming album. However, Bhat pretty much assures that the doom machine that is Dying Embrace will never stop rolling. “It is always about the music first for us. We heard the music, loved the music and then thought of playing it.”
