It’s common for black metal bands to be shunned away by the average music listener as evil. Kunal Gonsalves, the vocalist of the band Stark Denial, says that they had to face the same discrimination from the metal community when they were on the lookout for people to jam with, in their early days.
“Ruark D’souza (guitarist) and I started out in 2006 by covering death metal songs but our sound slowly evolved into black metal. Due to the stereotypes surrounding this style of music, I had to take up vocal duties and find another drummer,” informs Kunal, about finally having a solid lineup by 2009.
Ten years later, Stark Denial is one of the few extant black metal acts in the country with two releases—an EP called War (2013) and an album titled Covenant of Black (2018)—dealing with themes like war and the evils in society. We speak to the band as they’re scheduled to play their debut show in Kochi at Infernal Fest.
Survival instinct
Besides the subjects they deal with, Stark Denial also tries to bring vibrancy into their style of songwriting. “The genre we play involves a lot of emotion and therefore it’s important to have an understanding between the bandmates. After roping in Paresh Garude on bass, we’ve focused on a bringing a lot of variations within the same song rather than just repetitive patterns,” he says.
Taking up responsibility for more than just making music, they’ve contributed to the underground music community by organising four editions of a DIY event called Black Metal Krieg.
“Black metal projects are not picked up to play at other shows. So, we designed the show to give space to up-and-coming bands who have a passion for the sound,” says the vocalist, who even brought down French act Manzer to perform at one of the events.
Stark Denial’s first visit to the city will feature Karthik Jayaprakash from Bengaluru-based band Grossty on drums. Their setlist will have six tracks including As Life Descends and Dormant I Lie. The quartet will take to stage alongside four Bengaluru-based acts namely The Black Regiment, Necrophilia, Bad Taste and xrepeatx.
On September 7, from 5 pm.
At Nosh Haus, Aluva.
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