Rudra, the pioneers of Vedic metal, return with their eighth studio album Enemy of Duality and it’s a cataclysmic abomination of metal and folk that may just be welcoming the resurgence of Kali Yuga. Yet even through the aural strife it conveys it holds the seed of a knowledge profound. Rudra have been around for a while, close to a quarter of a century, and they have never missed a beat from the tablas.
Enemy of Duality is a return to form of Rudras’ own Vedic metal. Harnessing Hindi spirituality and translating it into a blistering and brutal death march of crispy guitar riffs and temperamental world instruments. These guys imbue their instruments with a strong and powerful energy to absolutely rock the roost of the alternative coup. The expression of the elemental black metal in this album is flawless, as in Fucking-Lawless.
Taking black metal back to it’s thrash roots and augmenting it with musical instruments of ethnic origin has been a popular choice for many acts as a way to define their sound and Rudra do it naturally. Utilizing the familiar style associated with intense and baudy metal riffs to redefine them with a bit of vedic charm. Where the timbres of the traditional Asian instruments affect a different character from the well pronounced electric guitar sound.
With a damn fine production this album is what the world has been waiting for. It’s not just a thrash/black metal album, it’s more, it’s an atavistic metal album that doesn’t have any of the incestuous mutations twenty years of symphony and palm muting riffs brought to the avant-garde black metal tangent. It’s an culturally honorific metal album that riffs in all the right places, disregarding easy hooks and other popular tricks, for a honest sound bursting with integrity. It has rhythmic authenticity burning from its very core.
The latest release from Singaporeans Rudra is a composite album that works in harmony with its dynamic components to create a beautiful and diverse culture of music without the novelty that ethnicity provides. To describe its attitude would be to say that it’s an anachronistically defiant album that preserves both traditional and modern music under the flag of Rudra.
10/10
