History of heavy metal from Bangladesh

jnfernal · Post by **jnfernal** » Sat Jun 04, 2011 7:34 pm

I came back to Italy and I got enough material to write down an almost complete history of heavy metal from Bangladesh (!)
Expect lots of info about unknown bands such as Warfaze, Rockstrata, In Dhaka, Waves, Aces, Rock Brigade, Rock Phantom, Poached Boogie, Sweet Venom and many ohers

First heavy metal bands appeared in 1984 and it's possible to find CD editions of some of them, such as Warfaze, Rockstrata, In Dhaka and the Compilation Hooray released in 1991

Here some scans that will be included in the dossier:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UJH2Z239

Soon also a reportage about the history of heavy metal in Dominican Republic with unknown bands such as Emphipis, Fuzz, Ekinoxio (including link to very rare recordings/demo/studio tracks available) and from Honduras (with bands as Delirium Tremens, Terciopelo Negro, Trauma....though you can find a shortened/not full article also on the Strappado Blogspot.

daniel · Post by **daniel** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 4:08 am

VERY COOL!!!

Baphometalzine · Post by **Baphometalzine** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 4:28 am

Hey, that awesome, I has been playing with my band in Dhaka, Bangladesh past January, a public of 200 metalhead came to see us, probably the most "die hard" public we played for!

By the way, Im soon to get the LP from RockStrata

jnfernal · Post by **jnfernal** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 6:09 pm

The Lp from Rockstrata (whose I am listening to in this moment) should be fucking rare....the tape edition is almost impossible to find and the CD version can be found mainly in London or New York in very few ethnic music shops. I found the CD first when I went to Bangladesh a few months ago (but I lost/left them in China a few weeks later) then I found it again in 1 shop only in London. I visited something like 20-30 bangla/indian music shops in London and nobody carries that kind of music. "Not commercial"

Anyway the Rockstrata album is good but totally wasted by a criminal production.

Same for In Dhaka album...it mixes heavy metal tracks (and also some speed/thrash ones) with blues/ska/traditional others. One songs starts with the same riff of "Running free" (!) and it evolves in a ska/rockabilly thing...weird album. Anyway the metal tracks are criminally ruined by a totally unadeguate singer who thinks there is no difference between singing rock or singing romantic folk bangla love songs....sounds like Celelalte Cuvinte (Romania) first 2 albums but much more gay-style...

jnfernal · Post by **jnfernal** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 6:20 pm

On the compilation album Hooray made in 1991 (with Rockstrata, Warfaze and In Dhaka among others) the first track by Reshad is none other than Pink Floyd's "The wall" where the english lyrics are just replaced with bangla lyrics. Nothing more nothing less. Curious fact is that it is the only song of the compilation that has no title....

The beginning of heavy metal in eastern Asia seem it was just a cut and paste process...

Flesh And Skin from Thailand made several tape albums and - though they can't be exactly defined as "metal" they literally copied if not criminally stealed dozens of riffs of international western rock bands mixed with some original ideas....

When I was in China in 2006 I saw a black metal/death metal gig with 6-7 bands (including Spring And Autumn plus that doom metal band from Hong Kong - I forgot the name, pretty famous - and others)...it was a festival of "stealed riffs" from Metallica's black album or "Kill em all", Slayer's "Reign in Blood" or "Season in the abyss" most famous songs, Anthrax, Megadeth mixed with some original ones....the crowd probably didn't recognize it or just attributed those "I always heard this riff and now I know who's the band who made it" to the wrong authors...."ah this riff is made by this chinese band, I always wondered since years who invented it"...would probably wonder an average chinese fan listening to the "Raining blood" riff that was played by at least 3 bands the same night into 3 different (but not that much) songs. The problem is that it was not just a riff only....almost 60% of songs were just carbon copies mixed with a mere 40% of original ideas....

well I am going too far now but I can't say the heavy metal I listened to until now in Asia is the perfect example of originality or even honesty....

Helstar · Post by **Helstar** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 9:32 pm

that's hilarious ! "Oh now I know who made this riff in first place !" AHAH priceless

jnfernal · Post by **jnfernal** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 9:42 pm

Sure! I remember when I was at that concert and I heard the riff of "Raining blood" (and the first 1-2 minutes of the song was EXACTLY "Raining blood" riff after riff" so I said: "they copied it from Slayer!"

"Oh, really? You mean they sound similar?" answered back a young metalboy....

Well I guess that it's a riff that not every metal fan in the world may know...