Released By : Twilight Productions
Genre : Progressive Death Metal
Link: http://kartikeya.su/
Tracklist:
01 Sarva Mangalam
02 He Who Carries The Head of Brahma
03 The Path
04 Fields Of Kurukshetra
05 Moksha
06 Neverborn
07 Surya Jayanti
08 Exile
09 Choirs of Oblivion
10 Utpavana
11 Mahayuga pt. 1: Satya Yuga
12 Mahayuga pt. 2: Treta Yuga
13 Mahayuga pt. 3: Dvapara Yuga
14 Mahayuga pt. 4: Kali Yuga
Death metal as a genre has suffered a little bit over the last five or so years with a lot of people steering away from it claiming that there isn’t many interesting albums being released and it’s just been the bands doing the same thing over and over. To some degree I personally subscribe to this theory, maybe not as much as some but yes, I do feel interesting releases in the genre these days are few and far between. That still doesn’t stop me however from listening to many, many albums waiting for something to jump out at me.
Enter MAHAYUGA, the second album from Russian Federation based group KARTIKEYA… First up let me say that this album is definitely one of the most interesting and exciting death metal albums I’ve listened to in quite a while and I’m sure with the right exposure this album could really make some massive inroads for the band and may well set them on a course for major success. Yes, it’s definitely death metal, but there is plenty of brutality, progressiveness, technicality, melody and overall class running through it. This may turn off fans of the more straightforward cookie-monster vocal traditional death metal in the vein of DEICIDE and MORBID ANGEL (Not modern day MORBID ANGEL though, their latest album sucked the big one!), but it should definitely interest fans of DARK LUNACY, ETERNAL TEARS OF SORROW and even ORPHANED LAND.
There’s also the middle-eastern vibe to take into account too, which just adds something extra to sink your teeth into, there’s not enough of it to be comparable to say ENISFERUM or WINTERSUN, but there is enough of it to keep things interesting. There’s also elements of math metal here too, but that’s mainly due to the extreme pace that the blast-beats can reach at times and shouldn’t be looked at as a reason to pass on it.
As is the fact with any really good album, choosing individual tracks to highlight can be quite difficult, and in the case of MAHAYUGA you really do need to sit and listen to the disc as a whole to get the right feel of it. At a stretch though, I guess the unwavering brutality of HE WHO CARRIES THE HEAD OF THE BRAHMA is what I look forward to the most when I give this album a spin, but then there’s other absolute ball-tearers like MOKSHA, EXILE and the four part suite that makes up the last section of the album that also deserve as much of a special mention as anything else.
Simple fact with this album actually, if you’re a fan of interesting death metal go and get yourself a copy today, you won’t be disappointed at all. If you are one of the many that are hesitant to dip your toe back into the death metal pool, then there’s never been a better time to take a chance….
Written By ZeeZee
Rating : 9/10
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