INTERVIEW: Thrash metal act Amorphia speak to us about their upcoming release [India]

INTERVIEW | Amorphia
Thrash Metal (India)
Interviewer: Trendcrusher

Thrash metal is the most popular metal subgenre in India. 3 of the “Big 4” of thrash metal royalty (the exception being Anthrax) have performed in the country in the past decade. There are thrash metal bands across the country including smaller towns like Cherthala in Kerala where Amorphia (https://www.facebook.com/Amorphiathrash) hail from. The band formed in 2012 and have released 2 singles so far,  Master of Death and Lieber Code. The latter features on their debut album Arms to Death, which will be released on April 15

We are premiering Toxic Death, the 3rd track from the album. The band describes the track as:

“Toxic death is related to biochemical warfare and its impact. It’s the track that we worked a lot on musically, and eventually, turned out to be one of the best tracks on our album.”

Find out more about Arms to Death, recording the album and also the Indian bands that have inspired them in my interview with the band below.

The band has been together for 6 years now. How was the present line up formed?
Yeah almost 6 years. The band has only ever had one lineup ever since its inception, but recently, Manu was replaced by Jason (Anonymous) due to his other priorities. The three of us have been jamming for almost six years now. Before Amorphia got serious we were playing college competitions and stuff. It’s easy and very comfortable for us as we are just within 8 kilometers of each other and are from the same locality.

How did you get into metal? What are the thrash metal bands that inspired you to start a band in that style?
We listened to a lot of classic and hard rock stuff. Not sure how, but slowly metal also kicked into our veins. The good thing about the band is we all started this together and have almost the exact same influences. We didn’t actually mean to be a thrash metal band. The first few songs we wrote were hard rock. Then a few years later we began tripping on records by Sodom and early Kreator. This is when we released our debut single Master of Death. And ever since then whatever we write is influenced by Teutonic thrash bands. Our major influences are Sodom, early Kreator, Metallica, Accuser, Merciless and Slayer.

You are gearing up for the release of your debut album Arms to Death. The album features aggressive vocals and killer riffs. Tell us a bit about it.
The album features a blend of blasphemy and war. It comprises of eight songs depicting necromancy prophecies, different types of warfare and its effects upon this world, prison deaths etc. It’s actually theme based. Starting from necromancy prophecies that predicted the future of our world exactly that way we see it today “Eternal war till end of mankind”. Followed by tracks supporting the intro track like Army of Evil, Toxic Death, Camp 22, Nuclear Warfare, Arms to Death, Airborne and the Lieber Code. Each track is unique in its own kind.

Where was the album recorded? Do describe the recording process.
Drums was recorded at Jam Music Conservatory Kochi. Guitars, bass and vocals were recorded at home. Recording process is first we recorded drums, then guitars , bass and vocals on top of it . We used a vintage power V Yamaha Drum kit which is a rare drum kit to see in India. We were looking for a tone similar to Sepultura’s Arise album and the drums sounded massive. For guitars we used a Mesa Boogie Dual Rect amp simulator. It was totally a digital approach to reduce the production cost and maintenance but we tried our best to make it sound like a proper analogue production without losing the quality of the audio. The album was mixed and mastered at Foster Black Productions in Mumbai by the super talented sound engineer Abhishek Walimbe .

Chaos and The Down Troddence are the well known bands from the Kerala metal scene. What are other bands that the readers should know about?
Chaos are like big brothers to us. Apart from Chaos and TDT, I think we should not forget Dark Crucifix and Warhorse Chained who created some insane music back in the day.

New bands from Kerala to take note of include: Occultism, Prophets of Yahweh, Rocazaurus, Mind Field.

Which Indian metal bands have had an influence on you?
Kryptos have influenced us a lot. We got pumped after watching them live in 2014 and wrote the song Master of Death right after. Also Dying Embrace, how they’ve manage to keep the band going after years of existence. It is essential to stick together no matter what life has in store for each one of us .

What are your plans for the rest of the year? Do you have any shows planned?
Yeah we have more great news coming your way regarding the label and a few great shows planned for up north and also in Bangalore.

Thanks for answering all our questions. Do you have any final words?
Thanks for all the love and support you guys have given us. We just work hard  keep things real and focusing on creating good music and moving forward, things will turn out good eventually 😉

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Interview conducted by none other than Peter K aka Trendcrusher. He, much like the rest of us, is someone who has an insatiable desire to discover the most obscure bands from around the world, and is an active supporter of bands from the region. He also runs his own blog called Trendcrusher. We can’t thank him enough for sending in interviews to help continue to build the content of our site.]