Indian Rock: Bloodywood

As a teenager in the 1990s, the complaint from adults was: “Your music is too loud.”

As an adult today, my complaint to young people is: “Your music is too quiet.”

At some point, the music stopped getting louder. Those of us who spent our formative years witnessing Nirvana dethroning big hair pop and then growing up to become the likes of Linkin Park and Incubus have a yearning for music that inspires the primal need to smash a beloved guitar after a mournful solo a la Brandon Lee in The Crow.

Enter Bloodywood, a breath of politically charged heavy metal fresh air perfectly infused with traditional Indian sounds and soulfully screamed in no less than three languages at a time. Make no mistake, Bloodywood is not just a rehash of that 90s irreverent rage but a true modern torch bearer of its spirit with proper evolution that moves the art forward.

Even a few seconds listening to Bloodywood tunes will make it immediately clear it is siren song for those who came of age in the last decade of the last century. But it’s not just the music–the content of their lyrics also just goes there.

Take “Dana Dan”, for instance, which starts off simply and directly with: “I put a fist through the face of a rapist.” The title is Hindi for “Bring the Beatdown”, and we immediately find out who the target of said beatdown is. The 90s opened with Tori Amos’s paradigm shifting Little Earthquakes album featuring the song “Me and a Gun”, a haunting melody sung in the voice of a sexual assault survivor, a full circle match yin for the yang of “Dana Dan”.

Might I add that their music videos are gorgeously produced in both narrative and visuals, an excellent complement to the songs that drive their message home. Exhibit “Dana Dan” MV above, complete with a blue violently dancing Kali, the Hindu goddess of death.

When in need of a reason to live, I listen to their whole 2022 album Rakshak on repeat all day. Because now and then, we all need to feel the “fire and the fury of the third world, son”.