Metal Band Sarfaad Tackle Radicalization As They Face Social/Political Turmoil in India

Sarfaad is a modern math metal outfit hailing from the underbelly of the grimy suburban Bombay, India. Sarfaad, literally means splitting of the head (in Hindi) and it is the band’s core essence to deliver a background score to that. With heavy breakdowns and riffs with an attitude, Sarfaad’s lyrical aggression coupled with pounding drums, they are a sonic revolution. Sarfaad believes in existing on the fringes of genres. The band derives its musical influences from late hardcore, mathcore and metalcore and mixes newer sounds from genres like hip hop, dub and prog.

Sarfaad is for the listeners who need to channel their inner rage into music with a message.

The first offering from the Sarfaad camp comes in the form of ‘Painting a Villain’ aptly titled so, it talks about the delicate issue of radicalization. Through the eyes of pop culture, the recent upsurge in the Anti-Hero narrative of things makes us empathize with a negative element of the society. Today we have quotes flying around the internet donning the images of an antagonist questioning the morals of our society. Flash frame of real-life gets blurry within the consumption of media and we often tend to forget that this problem of radicalization is very real.

‘I have hated myself more than you’ll ever know, Burning bridges, like a fucking fire show.’

These words describe an individual’s mentality of nihilistic tendencies pushing the barrier of no remorse, cutting ties with the society and self-loathing up to a point where they come out as a full-blown maniac. So, in effect the society is ‘Painting’ i.e. creating a villain.

Sarfaad, started off as a brainchild of guitarist, Sushant Vohra, teaming with self-taught knowledge and desire to create and entity of sound that was no-bullshit balls to the walls heavy. In mid-2019, Sushant enlisted Reeshav as the Drummer and Sanjeet as the guitarist for the project. By late 2019, after some searching over the internet, Arbaaz had joined their ranks as the vocalist and Sarfaad was in full effect.

Soon the quartet from Bombay hit up the studio and started working on their debut release with an uncompromising assault of a hybrid sounds including gnarly guitars, down tempo beats and bashing bold bars.

In 2019, India was going through tumultuous times facing numerous socio-political issues, which gave rise to a youth-centric revolt throughout the country. The youth was now against a systemic rise of bigotry, racism, misogyny, fascism and religious divide. While countless poured on to the streets a number of artists realized one thing.

Art creates a revolution stronger than bombs and bullets.

Punk, Hardcore, Metal and Hip Hop have always been the front runner in the movements across the globe. Vocalist Arbaaz believes that change can be brought through the community and with the music of Sarfaad, he wants to bring about a socio-political mindfulness. By no means does this stray into the realms of activism, but trying to provide soundtracks for the revolution. Not only does Sarfaad stand behind a revolution they believe in they also talk about basic human problems touching topics of mental well being and perils of the society projected upon individual minds.

While speaking about the band, Sushant says he wanted to create a no compromise, heavy hard-hitting musical group that could break down genre-defining barriers in the alternative scene. The crew spent the later half of 2019 writing, re-writing and producing music and channeling their inner rage into Sarfaad.

With plans of a single release later in April and an EP planned to be released later in 2020, Sarfaad also has planned a string of shows which act as a demonstration of the ethics that build Sarfaad. They are here to spread the message loud and clear. Sarfaad, is more than four rage-fueled young guns, it plans to accumulate a community of like-minded people working towards a bigger change.

https://www.facebook.com/sarfaad.bombay