Macabre in Metal

Riju Dasgupta,bassist and creator of Albatross confesses,“I’ve been a huge King Diamond fan for many years now and one of the best things that happened to me was discovering them on Facebook. So late one night I sent Andy LaRocque,their guitarist,a message asking if he would master our CD. I never thought he would reply,but he did. And after many rounds of negotiations,we finally sent our album to him.” Dinner is You is set for release next month and will probably be India’s first horror metal album.

Surprisingly,though,they haven’t even recorded the album in a studio. “Rajarshi Bhattacharya,our guitarist,offered to do it for us on his laptop in his room in IIT Mumbai,” Dasgupta reveals. It wasn’t an easy task. “The walls were obviously not soundproof and we had to tell people to keep it down. Every time there was an interruption,we would take a pizza break,” he adds. Apart from Dasgupta,who also plays bass for another city band,Workshop,and Bhattacharya,the band also includes former Zohak vocalist Biprorshee Das,drummer Jay Thacker,a marketing professional,and guitarist Jimmy Alexander,who was an MTV Rock On finalist.

“There may be other bands performing horror in India,but it’s safe to say that we’re producing the first album,” says Das. In the case of Dinner is You,the macabre finds expression in songs about cannibalism. Dasgupta says he got the idea while reading a book called Cut Throat by Michael Slade. “It’s about this guy who keeps laughing throughout the book for no real reason and you find out at the end that it’s because he’s a cannibal and he has this disease called Kuru,which you get from eating human flesh. It makes you lose control of your senses.”

The only song on the album without any relation to the theme is The Great Plague of the 21st Century. Dasgupta informs,“The song Ring A Ring o’ Roses which children sing is actually about the great Bubonic plague that hit Britain in the middle ages. I like to believe that our song is the Ring A Ring o’ Roses for the 21st century.”

Their music is also being called ‘literary metal’ and one sees why—the songs are a clear attempt at telling stories.

“Dinner is You is about a man who visits somebody for dinner and finds out that he himself is going to be eaten,” explains Dasgupta. “Similarly,a cannibal is being tried in court and the judge never turns up. There is a nice twist at the end to explain why.”

With the band’s name,an obvious reference to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,they’re paying tribute to poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and not,as many might expect,to Iron Maiden who did a masterly version of the ballad. Das explains,“Of course,Maiden has been a huge influence on us,but it’s more a tribute to Coleridge and literature.”