siLLy puPPy Sri Lanka is one of those places that dates back to prehistoric settlements as far back as 125,000 years ago and a major player in the development of Buddhism yet most will only recognize this small nation as the teardrop on the map flowing from India’s southernmost tip. Plagued by internal conflicts and corruption since independence in 1946, this nation has also produced some extremely hostile revolutionary groups so given all this history it’s no wonder that Sri Lanka has also emerged as a center of underground extreme metal with GENOCIDE SHRINES from the capital city Colombo having become one of the better known of these fast-paced apocalyptic musical madness acts. Half the members are also in Manifestator.

Formed in 2011 the band jumped onto the war metal bandwagon and features Tridenterrorcult [Chathuranga Fonseka] (vocals), BlasphemousWarGoat [Kasun Nawarathne] (drums), NarkotikPerversor (guitar), Khaoshiva (bass) and Naga Yakka [Joseph De Alwis] (guitar). With an EP, spit and couple live albums under its belt, the 2015 album MANIPURA IMPERIAL DEATHEVOKOVIL: SCRIPTURES OF REVERSED PURAANA DHARMURDER is so far the only full-length. Bogged down with a syllable-rich title, so too do the tracks engage in excess verbiage with exuberant titles such as "Hurl Burning Spears to Exhume the Raavanic Throne of Sivvhela Retaliation.”

The entire point of this album is to create a pummeling claustrophobic rampage through sound. While the blackened death metal / war metal style is predominant, the band occasional employs indigenous tribal sounds, chanting and slower moments of death doom metal. In a nation of incessant street protests. political unrest, extreme poverty, tsunamis, ponzi schemes and every other form of oppression under the sun, GENOCIDE SHRINES evokes the zeitgeist of a nation that although primarily Buddhist by day, nurtures a dark time bomb effect behind the scenes that can erupt into extreme violence when the final straw breaks the proverbial camel’s back. MANIPURA IMPERIAL offers the perfect soundtrack to a land that has been utterly raped and pillaged by the oppressing colonial forces that continue to the present.

This is a riff-laden affair and follows the playbook of classic war metal acts ranging from Blasphemy and Beherit but takes things into a more aggressive and caustic arena as do many more modern examples of war metal. On the surface most war metal may come off as sounding pretty much the same so it’s imperative to dig a bit deeper to savor the underlying flavors. In the case of GENOCIDE SHRINES the secret ingredient is clearly the local folk flavors in the form of rhythmic flow and occasional appearances in the sun (usually as intros). Blastbeats are fortified with heavy cymbal action, jittery jazzy drumming techniques and percussive sweeps. Aggressive animal vocals, the norm in war metal is pretty much the same here.

The guitar and bass are highly distorted and for the most part form a unifying muddy effect often indistinguishable taking a cue from the world of black metal. The production offers a suffocating claustrophobic effect that leaves the listener little time to catch a breath amongst all the chaos but the album is well paced and offers moments of respite from the bestial bantering of the incessant guitar chugs, percussive truculence and bloodthirsty savagery of the anguished lyrical deliveries. War metal is an ugly beast and by its very nature will only appeal to a niche audience. The overall mix of death and black metal is fairly balanced here as GENOCIDE SHRINES utilizes the technical wizardry of death metal without sacrificing the overall mood setting bleakness of a black metal album. Reading various reviews i wasn’t expecting to like this one but it seems many miss the underlying Eastern elements that are buried beneath the mix. Oh well to each their own. I think this is excellent!