WEIRD ANXIETY, a six piece progressive dark metal band, hails from city of Shimla also known as ‘Queen Of The Hills’. They released their debut EP “Act I Scene I’ in March as a free download. Despite being new to the Indian metal scene, the band has already gained much respect in the zone after a few impressive stage performances followed by an impressive debut which they have decided to give away as a free download. Their philosophy is “Music makes us, not the other way round”. The band talks about life, nature and everything in between. The album art of the EP has been designed by the band itself by editing a very old picture of the Church at their hometown, Shimla.

​The band has gone through many line-up changes since the beginning. But the spirit of music has never died. The current line-up of Weird Anxiety is Karan Sharma on vocals, Hitesh Salhuria on Lead guitar, Abhinav Sharma on Rhythm Guitar, Samar Singh Rana on Bass, Saswata Debnath on Keyboards and Nitin Virat on Drums.

​Moving on to the EP, “Act I Scene I” is a three track debut EP. The EP plays up to 25 minutes. It starts of nicely with the track ‘Just When It Started to Darkout in Heaven’. This marks the beginning of the band’s musical career. It’s a pretty good dark metal track which is complete in all its components, let it be guitars, bass, keyboards, drums or vocals. The track is little symphonic. The keyboards and guitars are successfully able to create a dark atmosphere in the track, reflecting its idea. This track has chunks of warm synth and guitar layers. The next track, ‘God Still Hates Me’ is impressive. This track has an awesome display of drums along with well-carved riffs and lead guitaring. More display of synth and guitar work can be easily noticed in this particular track. The last, but surely not the least, ‘Maid of The Mist’ is my favorite track of the EP. The band has left the best track for the end. This track is no less than those better sounding depressive bands I’ve heard. The track has a very good intro, excellent lyrics, insane vocals and suicide screams and some effective drumming and riffing. This is an impressive progressive music composition and a nailer for a debut!

​Placing Himalayan Black Metallers Weird Anxiety’s debut EP alongside other releases of the same genre, I won’t say that they are unique, but yes, they are extremely promising. They have always been connected deeply with their work and their debut Ep very much shows their hard work. The band has not let their fans down as “Act I Scene I” is a pretty good debut EP. Weird Anxiety has given a very fine debut album. Cheers!

Review by Dinesh Verma