Rudra
Enemy of Duality

They call it Vedic Metal, the style of music that is performed by Singapore based band Rudra. That is another way of writing death metal with oriental/hindu influences. This album is the eighth album by Rudra and it has been very well received by the internet reviewers. Unfortunately those reviewers have not made themselves known as a critical bunch so I guess I have to decide for myself, and decided I have and now I have written it down as well.

Rudra is a death metal band with some more exotic sounds added to what is a fairly standard death metal template. Though fans of this music will of course see many more nuances in this album than most of us do and they will not think it is a tad on the long side with its fifty minutes of playing time and slight lack of variation, a trait it shares with most genre friends. Brutal vocals and those things we usually hear in death metal are all present, I think the vocalist has some merit but ultimately he is a tad ordinary for the genre.

They do have some interesting offerings to bring and they do offer a really fine death metal album, I kind of like it. In the end though I think it is an album mostly for the fans, fans of this genre and fans of this band. I doubt they will find many new fans with this new album, and I equally doubt that they will loose any of their existing fans with it. That is probably enough as I somehow doubt that they were aiming to break through into the mainstream with Enemy of Duality, their fans are going to love this and that is probably all that matters.

Good but not that interesting for me, other than it is always great to get to hear bands from more exotic locations, like Singapore. Rudra does well and their fans will be pleased, there are more interesting albums out there for the rest of us. In the end I want to add that it is the elements of duality that makes for the best stuff on this album, perhaps they should embrace duality instead of making it an enemy.

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