ADITYA VARMA

Mumbai’s groove metal band Asylum has finished recording all five tracks for their debut EP Inmate, due to release sometime in November. On August 31, the band released the first track off the upcoming EP, ‘Towards the Zero’ which is available for streaming on YouTube and Soundcloud. The intro for ‘Towards the Zero’ opens up with an excerpt from the 2001 psychological-horror film, Session 9, instantly setting the ominous tone of the song, which is embellished with a quite irresistible groove. We spoke to bassist Anubhav Rattan, and this is what he told us about the song: “‘Towards the Zero’ is about how gullible we are as humans, and how we believe whatever is said to us by someone else.We are like a herd of sheep, so the song talks about opening your eyes and seeing what’s around you.”

“The EP has five songs,” he said, “of which one is an instrumental. We talk about different stuff, man, but it revolves around the flaws in humanity and also how we perceive god to be in a physical form rather than a spiritual form. We also talk about how we as a species are screwing nature up just for our benefit.”

Inmate was recorded and produced by Arun Iyer of Devoid along with live sound engineering by GurAaftaab Grewal. We asked Anubhav about their experience recording, and he said: “It was a great experience; this is the first time we were going into recording. And, Arun was very professional and gave us honest feedback. Sometimes it was a little tough, but we got to learn a lot about the recording experience.”

The band was formed in March, 2010 and subsequently went through several changes in the line-up. Present members of the band are Raghu Raj (Drums), Vivek Bhatt (Vocals), Angad Singh Bahra (Guitars) and Anubhav Rattan (Bass). 

Stream 'Towards the Zero' by Asylum below: