Underground Chaos

While the history of the scene is important, it’s also a monumental task. It hasn’t been easy tracking people down, and in a lot of cases, memories have started to get hazy. So I think a good place to start would be a taste of the scene.

I’m going to go with the first release on my record label. There will be a detailed story of the label later, but this is the story of the first release.

Underground Chaos was the first release on GmH Records. It was a healthy mix of bands active early in the scene and then later up to around 2010. It was also at a point in our timeline when things had started to die out.

The art

The artwork for the CD and poster was done by Kevin Gan Yeun (Viraloptic) — you might have seen his work for Sunn O))) and Wolves in the Throne Room. Kevin was introduced to me by Justin Bartlett (Vberkvlt). I’d reached out to Justin originally for the art and couldn’t afford his services. So Kevin was there to help out.

We originally pressed 250 CDs (it was a double album and poster) and ended up selling around 150.

Obsessing over the details

Pulling it all together was such an experience. We obsessed over the most minor details. Like that time we argued with the printer on having the record label and compilation name printed on the back of the actual CD — or we’d reject the whole lot.

But even better was the experience of collecting the music and permissions. It’s also something that should’ve been handled a little better in terms of including more bands. I’ll be covering the missing bands in another dispatch and later in their stories.

Mastered next to a naat session

Since 90% of the music had been recorded on home PCs, we had varying quality across the board. In some cases the sound was only on one channel. Babar Sheikh took me to a studio in the backstreets of Tariq Road. It wasn’t a fancy studio, or a midrange one. But the guy did a great job of mastering the compilation. Also when it was being mastered, two other booths in the studio had naat records happening!

I’m not going to bore you with more stories (you can read those in later dispatches), so here is a track-by-track breakdown:

This track was an obvious choice for an opener. And yes, it was because of the thunder. But also because this was a very special time. Dusk’s sound was changing. They were always on the doom-y, progg-y side, but the last release was when it pushed towards the more death and thrash side. We were on an insane thrash trip for the last three years. Every Sunday I’d be at Babar’s place and we’d spend the next 4 to 5 hours listening to nothing but South American and European thrash. Lots of Coroner, Barbatos, Morbid Saint, Sarcófago.

This was the last track that came in before we went for the compilation’s mastering. Yusri of Cardiac Necropsy was the vocalist during this era, but Babar did the vocals on this track. Babar also played bass on Impiety’s Formidonis Nex Cultus album. GmH Records went on to release Dusk’s split with Singapore’s Distrust after this. Still the best Dusk sound for me.

I had no idea these guys existed till Babar played them for me. They were originally called Eleventh, they changed their name to Venom Vault around 2008. This was some of the most in-your-face thrash I’d ever heard coming out of Pakistan. Loud as fuck too. They didn’t do much after a couple of demos.

Jonathan went on to produce singles by other underground acts and now performs with Haroon (of Awaaz and Burka Avenger fame).

Straight up old school death metal from Karachi. Cardinal Sin and Communal Grave shared band members, but had very different sounds. This track was exclusive to the compilation back then and hadn’t been released before.

The band had been working on an album at the time of the release and we had planned on releasing it on GmH Records, but then we fell out of touch and the label eventually shut down. I don’t think they completed the album. Release the album if you did, boys! Not sure where the other guys are today, but Nabeel migrated and is a data scientist now. You can take some of his courses on Datacamp too (how cool is that?).

I knew nothing about this band back then except that Babar sent me the track. And I still don’t know much. Absolute mystery. Also probably because the main guy behind it moved abroad and wasn’t connected to people back home much.

Babar tells me he helped name the band because the music sounded like gravel soul to him. Asad (who was apparently behind the band) had moved to the UK and was launching a new band called Death the Band (?? I mean ??), and then he helped with the new name. Babar was also the one who gave the title to the track on the compilation. This was different for what was happening in the scene. Gandhi and Jinnah snippets, Meshuggah lite. Sold. Gravel Soul also had a horrible Call cover on their MySpace page.

Saqib Malik was a massive figure in the Lahore underground. More consistent than a lot of the extreme metal bands coming out of that scene. Pretty much all of his projects had at least one release (demo, single or album) — Corpsepyre, Sifr. Saqib had already moved to the US by this time and had also launched his own label called Esto Perpetua Records.

Black Albatross was originally called Funeral Junkie when Saqib was still in Pakistan. There was a lot of music being recorded under different projects during this time, plus Saqib was also doing a lot of video. There was a video of him performing an autopsy with a Black Albatross track playing in the background. This was never released. Brian Zimmerman of T.O.M.B. was also in Black Albatross. Saqib was also briefly in T.O.M.B. if I’m not wrong here, though there is no information on this online.

Hell Dormant was a side project of Kamran Farooq (Autopsy Gothic) and Wasi (Nokturnal Rust). I have so much to say about this band and the story behind their Mass Grave album, but that will be in a future dispatch.

Hell Dormant was one of the few bands in the early 2000s to actually release an album. It was tough picking a track from the album, but I decided to go with Twisted because it had a nice Death N Roll sound. Only one of Kamran’s other main projects went on to see a full album release, but nothing from Wasi, which is crazy considering this was a side project written and recorded in a week.

Melodic death metal from Karachi. Communal Grave were a regular feature on whatever was left of the underground by that time. They played regular shows alongside cover bands, and were always the only ones playing originals too.

Jamail had some projects before this too, but now I can’t find them anywhere. There was one he uploaded on Messiah’s forums, I think it was called Blood Ripper or War Ripper? There were also talks of releasing the Communal Grave album on GmH, but they had decided to go with another label later. The band eventually released their debut album themselves.

These guys really set the standard for a lot of local bands by releasing their album online. The submission came in from their drummer Bilal. Some scene veterans who also played in more known rock bands were a part of Odyssey too. Their vocalist was outstanding, plus they got Hammad from Corpsepyre to feature on one of the tracks on the album.

Both guitarists went on to form Odyssey after the vocalist and drummer moved abroad for their studies. GmH also released the Odyssey album, the first proper release by any underground metal band in Pakistan. Waqas now has another band called Doomsday Astronaut, they performed at Wacken 2024. Great guys, great band.

Reckoning Storm was Saad Akhter’s one man band. Instrumental metal. He also briefly played with Communal Grave and was quite involved with the anime and manga scene in Karachi. Saad went on to produce music for some games too. My favorite track by Reckoning Storm is still Lashkar. Banger. Why didn’t I pick that one? It was too short.

Utuk Xul was one of the first black metal tracks to come out of Pakistan. Heavy Darkthrone worship. They only had the one track.

This was Salman Mumtaz and Essam Chaudhry’s band. Salman was a very big part of the underground scene and instrumental in helping a lot of us find and share music. I think I still have one of his mIRC mp3 lists somewhere on a harddrive. Quite sure a lot of us wouldn’t have been able to discover a lot of extreme metal bands in the early 2000s if it wasn’t for Salman.

Northern Alliance is to date the filthiest sounding raw black metal you will ever hear coming out of Pakistan. Their only EP was released on vinyl by Shaxul’s (of Deathspell Omega) label. This was also one of Babar’s many projects.

They performed live once in Lahore and then in Karachi at a show with metalcore bands, which was a fucking hilarious experience because those kids were terrified after trying to start a moshpit and getting pushed into the wall by Ibad. They were also meant to play Zakfest 2, but left because their set was going to be late. I picked this as the opening track for this side because that intro is haunting. Tanseer Dar of Karavan is the one screaming. And it gets intense as the screams build up.

This band is still in my opinion one of our biggest losses. There was so much potential and short bursts of genius, but a lot of people never saw them live or got to hear their music. Autopsy Gothic was one of the few bands who were performing original music in the late 90s, and they were also at the legendary Shemhamforash gig. Their story will be in another dispatch.

The band didn’t have a lot of finished recordings besides Bloodshed and 2 other tracks. There were some demo tracks here and there. Picking the track for the compilation wasn’t easy. In the end we didn’t go with their greatest track (more on this later!). Autopsy Gothic later “loaned” their song Coward to Soul Vomit, who performed it regularly live. And Nabeel from Messiah was also originally in Autopsy Gothic.

Haramzada was another one of Babar’s projects, but a short-lived one. They only recorded 2 tracks, one of which is now lost.

The band came together when Babar was visiting Germany. Arish Khan (of King Khan and the Shrines) had asked Babar if he could play in Dusk, saying he wanted to play something heavy and dirty. So they decided to record 2 tracks. The drums were a toy kit that belonged to Arish’s daughter. The intro was in the style of a dialogue delivered by a Lollywood villain. Arish is also the man behind TikTok viral hit I Love You So (by The King Khan and BBQ Show). Quite sure you’ve heard it.

These guys were quite ahead of the scene. While most people were playing in cover bands and performing Metallica, Corpsepyre decided to put together gory originals. They played some live shows in Lahore too.

This was Saqib and Hammad’s band. Both of them were pretty active on the Dusk forums. And Hammad also got vocal tips from Karl Sanders of Nile on the Morbid Angel forums. This band could’ve been so much more.

I first heard Aufgang on the Hearts of Darkness compilation. But I’d first heard of them when I read about the band in Dawn Images. This was Babar’s project with Bargees Buns (who also played at Avari Hotel in Karachi) on Saxophone and Rizwan (who also plays with Babar in Chand Taara Orchestra and was in Ganda Banda and the 3D Cats).

Dark. Gloomy. Weird. Never done again in Pakistan. Turn the lights out on a rainy night and play this track.

Burzukh was a one man band that played a wide range of genres. Suleiman was quite active on the internet back in the early 2000s and was a frequent reviewer of industrial music. Suleiman apparently played in a bunch of bands in Pakistan. He listed names like The Banned, Holy Black and Dark Death. The first time I heard of or read the term Muslim Punk was his website URL.

Saqib’s second most known project after Corpsepyre. A solo project with one demo. They were meant to feature on the Rise of the Eastern Blood compilation, but that didn’t happen. I can’t recall but I think this was a previously unreleased track.

Dementia was a groove metal band from Lahore. They were very active on the live circuit too. A couple of singles here and there, plus one in Urdu. Hussam from Orion and Odyssey briefly joined the band later too.

Omar is my second cousin, and it’s so weird we reconnected after years through metal circles. I don’t think we’d spoken for over a decade before that. I really dig what they’d done with The Plague.

Avant-garde project of Taimur Mazhar, Omar Asim (both of 6LA8) and Asadullah Qureshi (Lower Sindh! Swing Orchestra). Early recording by the 6LA8 boys. One of their first too if I’m not wrong. I don’t have much information about the band beyond this. Asad now performs as Malamati.

Another one off project from Salman and Essam. This one featured Aneeq. I asked him how it came about and he said “they asked me to record something and I did it”. Legend. More on this later.

For Dispatch 3 I’ll cover the bands that weren’t on the compilation. Until next time.