Songs for 'Slayer'

As a tribute to Slayer’s Jeff Hanneman, a jamming session was held as part of the ‘Garage Jam’ at Sonido Musicals recently. Four bands, ‘Iris of Ire’, Timiraah, ‘Serenity Defined’ and Nihilus, amazed the audience with their renditions at the session.

Though the crowd was limited due to space constraints, each member of the audience was headbanging and swaying in the highest spirits. The adrenaline rush was clearly visible with the way the audience cheered for more every time a band took the stage.

Both the performers and audience agreed that the closed underground space did magic to the music. Sushanto Chowdhury, the bass guitarist of Timiraah, felt that this was an amazing space. “We opened the scene and were very excited to do so. The audience was very encouraging. Our music is not thrash metal unlike other bands. We are of an ambient black metal genre and were highly appreciated by the audience,” he said.

Listing the songs that the band played, Sushanto said they played original compositions like ‘Salt Circle Serenity’, ‘Endarkened’ and ‘Pyramid Eye’. For most bands, playing in this space was a new experience. “This was the first time that we had a jamming session like this. We played three songs, of which one was a tribute to Jeff,” said Gerard from ‘Serenity Defined’.

   Some of their other songs were Magfirah, which was about salvation and ‘Spoken Soul’, dedicated to a deceased friend. Gerard added that it was nice to see the crowd
fully involved with the performance.

Influenced by the music of ‘Slayer’, Sheshashayi Kumble, the lead guitarist of ‘Iris of Ire’, said that they performed two originals and two covers. “Our music is much influenced by Jeff and the band. It is very similar to the music of ‘Slayer’,” narrated Sheshashayi. He added that the band has performed in a lot of inter-collegiate competitions and thus, this was a different experience. “The audience was looking for a certain kind of music and was highly appreciative.

At other fests, the crowd consists of people with different musical tastes,” he said.Talking about the jamming session, Sreejith Sarkar, an IT professional said, “The best thing about ‘Garage Jam’ is that people can come in and walk out as they please. Also, only those who are actually interested stay back. Thus one gets to meet a lot of like-minded people.” He added that the attention span of the audience here was much more. Niveditha Kasangod, another member of the audience, was amazed that there was no person controlling the audience. She felt that it was a friendly venue where one could just unwind.