The Prestige took it upon itself to identify which bands would fit the profile if Bangladeshi bands had band-twins living abroad. We scoured through dozens of records, concert footage and up-and-close interviews to bring you our list of bands that we think would do justice to our radical title.
Rock Strata and Black Sabbath
Rockstrata, the pioneers of heavy metal in our country, with just two albums and 30 years of ground-breaking history in between would be the Bengali twin to Britain’s Heavy Metal Gods – Black Sabbath.
With relentless drumming by Mahbubur Rashid resembling Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward’s insatiable beats and Mushfiq Ahmed’s shredding vocals uncannily similar to Ozzy Osbourne’s. Tracks like Rokte Bheja Maati, Eituku Asha and Aartonad really stand testament to the fire Paranoid, Iron Man and War Pigs ignited in the iron-clad hearts of 5 teenage boys in 1980-s Dhaka, all the way from the Empire.
Unlike Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, Imran Hussain did not have to lose a finger in a factory accident to introduce heavy metal to Bangladesh. Though the cultural movement he helped create with Rockstrata did a hell of a job, inspiring bands like Cryptic Fate, Artcell and Powersurge.
Rockstrata is the only band in Bangladesh to have shot a full-length concert film of their last reported performance titled ‘One Last Live’.
Prestigious Finds:
1) Both Pioneers in their respective genres
2) Almost uncannily similar vocals
Ark and Aerosmith
The sweet and haunting first lines to Ark’s ‘Sweety’ go to show how much Ark frontman Hasan is inspired by Rock and Roll Supergroup Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler.
Rock ballads about love, screeching vocals and melodies spiking adrenaline to over 9000 are elements band-twins Aerosmith and Ark whole-heartedly share.
With Hasan’s sonic voice, and the revolutionary experimenting techniques apparent in all of the bands’ albums, no local band except for Ark can ever come close to Glam-Metal/Ballad Rock Gods Aerosmith.
Ark was formed in the year 1991 by keyboardist Ashiquzzaman Tulu. The band rose to fame with its debut album Muktijuddho and later went to release 5 other studio albums. Ark is largely known to be on par with bands such as Nagar Baul and LRB, which are responsible for developing and popularizing rock music in Bangladesh, much like Aerosmith, which is still referred to as ‘America’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band’.
Prestigious Finds:
Both popular for love ballads amongst their respective audiences
Hasan sounds awfully similar to Steven Tyler
Cryptic Fate and Iron Maiden
The “Iron Maiden” bass-strap hanging from Cryptic Fate frontman Shakib Chowdhury’s shoulders is an homage to the Byron fueled, mystifyingly metaphysical frenzy that is Iron Maiden.
Judging from Cryptic Fate’s almost 30-year-old catalog, Fate is heavily inspired to Maiden’s lyrical prowess.
The entire “Noy Maash” album, tracks from Danob, Sreshtho and to some extent Ends are Forever going a long way to show how close to Maiden’s angry and historically charged philosophy the Bangladeshi metal trailblazers are.
The overall aesthetic and attitude attributed to Cryptic Fate’s music resonate substantially with the dark themes and “In Your Face” attitude that Maiden is all about.
Nemesis and U2
Moving on to the most interesting band-twinnage of the article which is is U2-Nemesis.
If there is one band in our country that could possibly share this awesome title with U2, it would have to be alternative rock band, Nemesis.
With its ever-evolving guitar tones, uniting choruses and out-of-this-world song structures Nemesis is the closest thing to Alternative-giants U2 this country has ever produced.
With 20 years in the making, Nemesis is still dominating Dhaka’s alternative waves and we hope they don’t stop anytime soon.
Prestigious Finds:
1) Nemesis and U2 have been known to use the most unique guitar tones amongst their respective audiences
Black and Pearl Jam
Bangladeshi rock band Black, which is named after a single from the Pearl Jam album ‘Ten’. , was one of the first bands to have initiated the grunge movement in Bangladesh during the early 2000s.
Black was originally formed in 1998 by Jon Kabir (lead singer, rhythm guitars), Mushfeque Jahan (lead guitars), Tamzid Siddiq (bass guitars), Mehmood Tony (drums) and Tahsan Rahman Khan (keyboards) and has since then, released 5 studio albums. Their music has garnered positive reviews, causing them to have a large fan-base in Bangladesh.
Black with its authentic sound, crazy riffs, and earth-shattering grittiness has to be paired up with Grunge-Gods Pearl Jam.
Due to the article’s fictitious nature, the Prestige has refrained from addressing line-up changes and chosen to list the bands in no particular order.
