Heathen Beast - $cam album review

Increasingly difficult to ignore (and, frankly, why would you?), the metal scene in India has conjured some truly great bands in recent years, and Heathen Beast are very much at the top of that pile. Purveyors of a vicious, unrelenting and purposefully raw blend of punked-up grind and angular, dissonant thrash, they have released a succession of EPs that all exhibited great promise. This time, the threat is real: $cam is angry and intense, as expected, but these manic bursts of noise come imbued with a dash of subversion. Lurking within the 140-second agit-grind assault of Bailing Out The Banks are deft minieruptions of percussion and exotic groove, a perfectly skewed counterpoint to the band’s frenzied blasting and grimy chugs. Acerbic humour in the face of societal dismay is conspicuous by its jabbing, cynical presence here too, not least via songtitles like If You Disagree You Are Anti-National, Go To Pakistan and Fuck Poor People, I Have Paytm (which is an Indian e-commerce company, since you ask), but it’s the sum those parts that makes $cam so irresistible.