So here is what I need you to do. Listen to LANGDARMA while you read this post. Trust me, you will not regret it. Headphones recommended, you don’t want to scare the people living in your house.
Its a two man band. Norlha on vocals, drums and guitar and Thapkas on bass. They both hail from Leh, Laddakh. See! now you know that even Laddakh has death metal bands. They even hosted their first DIY death metal fest called Rolangs Death Fest in 2020. The show was live on Instagram for people like me who were under lockdown in Delhi. LANGDARMA is influenced by TIBETAN culture where lyrically it focusses on thoughts and philosophies of an individual. Norlha puts up in Delhi and that’s where I met him. It was a tattoo festival, perfect place for metal heads for inspiration. The pain you see on people’s face when the needle pierce their skin, just expand on that feeling and you have a deathly lyrics for your new self titled EP. At the tattoo festival Norlha told me about his project rBapho. I instantly added his album on my Bandcamp and since then I have been following him. Yes, he has two bands.
These guys work in silos and create very original stuff. They will never be mainstream. You won’t see them on a NH7 Weekender Poster. But you will see them on the Underground collection. Their EP སེམས་ཉིད་། (SEMSNYID) has 3 songs, named Death, Love and Human. You get it if you are plugged in to their music like I suggested at the beginning of the blog. There are hundreds of bands like LANGDARMA in India. They are all underground and their name passes from one metal head to another. Just like in Marketing, word of mouth is considered the best tactic. So this is my word of mouth for LANGDARMA. These guys are true to the music. Never to be sold for money.
Its also your chance to connect with the Tibetan culture. Death Metal at its best.