Stigmata’s Live Sound

I am passionate about music in general, and heavy metal in particular, so conversation with me will inevitably go down that path. What music I like, what bands I follow, etc. One of the things that I tend to always bring up in conversation with music buffs is the underground music scene in Sri Lanka. Rock music in general has experienced a massive increase in listenership in my country. Credit for that, in my mind, will always go to Stigmata.

It was around 2003 I first saw them, a couple of weeks or so before the launch of their debut ‘Hollow Dreams’. I wasn’t into heavy metal then – heck I was not even sure what the term meant being, as I was, in the midst of my Nirvana phase at the time – but it took two songs into their set that night for me to sit up and take notice. And I wasn’t the only one. I can bet a majority of the kids who came that day weren’t sure either, except the adrenaline rush of the music had a hypnotic quality that was hard to explain. At the time, Stigmata was doing no other band was willing to: compose heavy original music. Today there are around 15 bands in this country playing heavy music.

Seven years on, Stigmata has pretty much established themselves as the leaders of this burgeoning underground scene that covers the entire spectrum of extreme progressive metal, from black and death metal to jazz fusion-inspired progressive rock. I wonder if this would have been possible had Stigmata not been brave enough to make the first steps.

But that’s a discussion for another day.  I make this post because I’ve done my share of spreading the word about Stigmata and the local music scene on the internet. When I posted alot on music forums, I would talk about Stigmata and the other bands in this country. I’ve shared some of Stigs’ earlier material, but that is no longer representative of their sound. In many ways, Stigmata are a live band – and a killer live band at that.  Recently they played in Australia, the first Sri Lankan metal band to play in those shores and the only metal band invited for the festival, and as luck would have it their performance has been recorded and uploaded by these kind folks. A pretty good recording too.

You can download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?e832mkq524a6adb

The setlist is as follows:

1. Andura
2. SpiralComa
3. Purer (Libera Nos A Malo)
4. Jazz Theory
5. The Summoning Cry of Aries
6. March of The Saints

Length: 45:18

Sound Quality: A-

I hope this kind of piques your curiosity enough to want to check out their recorded material, the latest album being ‘Psalms of Conscious Martyrdom’.  A double review of the ‘Psalms and their sophomore record ‘Silent Chaos Serpentine’ can be found here: http://relativationofjustice.blogspot.com/2010/10/double-review-silent-chaos-serpentine.html