Imperial Cult Blackened death metal act from Darjeeling...

A few weeks back we had a small talk with guys from Imperial Cult. They are a blackened death metal act from Darjeeling. To know much about them you can check them out at

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Imperial-cult/384488021584633

Before we began say us something about Imperial Cult?

Hmm, we are a Blackened Death Metal band formed in Kolkata, West Bengal, but all our members are actually natives of Darjeeling. We formed Imperial Cult in Kolkata because all our members were present in Kolkata for academic purposes. We as a band love playing metal, we believe we can best express ourselves in this form of music. As stated earlier, we play blackened death metal, our influences include behemoth, naglfar, belphegor, rotting christ, and others and by the way, we have our debut ep coming...we plan to release it around June July.

29th Feb. 2012 until now how has been this journey of 2 years?

Well, we've had our share of highs and lows, but you know, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, so we've managed to keep our cool and move on. We've had a couple of line-up changes, at first we couldn't find a suitable drummer, we had to try couple of drummers, before we welcomed Triratna, we also had to part ways with our original bassist, but fortunately Khawas handled the bass duties just fine. Finally we have a stable line-up now. We’ve been writing songs for our debut, and a couple of weeks back we released our first official single...hopefully this will continue.

Imperial cult what does it means?

Imperial cult means a kingdom/region where a supreme being is the sole existing power and authority, he is the alpha and the omega, and all the others are dominated or ruled by him, and these 'others' worship this being as a god

So as per you guys saying your debut Ep will be launched in this years mid can you say more about it?

Well, its a four song ep, it also includes our single "the rise of yalambar” which is based on how Lord Krishna backstabbed the mightiest Kirat king Yalambar. It tells about the tyranny of Krishna. The other three songs are on the final stages of the recording process, they are black stone which is about a devil king, the other two are the abomination and pain of mortals (their titles say it all). The ep will be released sometime around June July. Hopefully, it will be received well by the masses

Well we wish you good luck for that. By the way can we know about the lineup?

Thank you, imperial cult are:

vocals - ashish shyangbo,

lead/rhythm guitars - siddharth lama,

lead/rhythm guitars - kushal rai,

bass - rishav khawas,

drums -triratna moktan

So you guys played here in Nepal last year in Slaughtered house death fest in hetauda how was your experience?

The experience was awesome; we had gone there with two other awesome bands from Darjeeling, namely malevolent bloodshed and obliterating vortex. We were received by members of extreme underground hetauda and vishal dai(wakk thuu) and our stay was vary pleasant. Meeting other death metal and grindcore bands was awesome, we really liked the brotherhood and camaraderie of the bands there, and it was inspiring. the show went well, except for some minor technical glitches on our part it was inspiring to watch bands like dying out flame, undefined human, Bidroha (they had headlined the show) and others...so, yeah...it was an amazing experience

As far as i know all members are involved in other bands as well especially i want to ask Triratna you serve drums duty on GRUNGY MORPHINS as well how far are you guys able to manage time with other bands and i want to ask you all how are you all going without affecting your academics as well ?

Yes, i also handle drum duties for grungy morphins as well, grungy morphins are currently not active as our other members are engaged in their own obligations, so as of now, and I am able to focus solely on imperial cult. As for time management, we don't really plan out our time schedules, we just go with the flow, if you know what i mean, haha. Well, speaking about academics, being in a band, we can't say it doesn't affect our academics, because it does. Attending practice sessions or even getting together with other band members who live 4 hours away means we have to skip a few classes here and there which may cause some attendance issues in college, but its totally worth it since we're doing/pursuing what we love. After all what is a man with out his dreams or hopes right?

Exactly no pain no gain. By the going beyond the band what are the albums you guys are going through nowadays (any genres)?

Behemoth's the satanist,

deathspell omega's drought,

autopsy's the headless ritual,

obliteration's black death horizon and so on,

and locally, dying out flame's 'shiva rudrastakam" was absolutely amazing, havn't gotten around to getting hold of bidroha's "suffer till death", unfortunately, but hope to very soon, looking forward to narsamhaar"s "genocide euphoria

Yeah i am waiting for Narsamhaar as well. By the way you guys are Blackened death band can you say something about this genre?

Well, as the name suggests, blackened death metal incorporates elements of both death metal and black metal, bands that play this form of music include the likes of behemoth, akercocke, belphegor, etc.

Yeah it can be easily seen in the lyrical pattern as well. By the way any project in the pipeline?

Not that we can think of, no. at least not until June, or before the release of our ep. Some of our members also have exams until June so, we'll be playing gigs only from June

I am waiting for the ep to be release and grab it. So guys any message to the fans?

To our supporters, we'd like to thank them for being there for us and supporting us, look out for our ep, and keep supporting the local metal scene

Lastly a space for you to ask if we SNRMB crew forgot to ask?

I don't think there's anything left haha. You’ve asked and we've answered "D