Born and raised in Guwahati, Abhinav Borah has always been closely connected to nature. He started his journey in music as a kid who set out to learn Hindustani classical vocals. His tastes in music evolved into the heavier western genres of rock and metal as he picked his guitar in 2012. What once started as covering bands like Metallica and Children of Bodom, he soon got fascinated with music that played on complex time signatures. His newfound love for such music got him into bands such as Dream Theatre and Animals as Leaders. It was around that time that he ventured out to performing live and also got into music direction for theatre and short films. He enjoys composing scores as it helps him express himself through an array of emotions.
He released his first original track called ‘Tum’ in 2015 and since then he’s recorded guitars for various projects until he released his official debut track as a solo artist with ‘Kingslayer’ in 2019. Soon after that, he released an EP called Warband which helped him win the award for Best Rock Artist at SMA 2020. He spends his day listening to music, trying to influence his style, and works towards sharpening his skills as a Progressive Metal Guitarist. He loves music that is sonically and theoretically technical as now working with music that confines to normal 4/4 doesn’t interest him anymore.
His latest release ‘Blind’ describes the way animal poaching and other ills of mankind affect nature and how we are oblivious to our doing. The song was written to talk about the poaching scenario in Assam, India, and in general about crimes against the environment all over the world. He has composed this prog metal track with intensity in mind. The song focuses on using heavy guitars and drums, contrasted with synth melodies to provide a huge soundscape, and uses alternating time signatures to embody an uneasy atmosphere. When we asked him about the recording process of the track, Abhinav said “While recording the rhythm guitars for the pre-solo interlude, I had not thought about the time signatures behind it. But when I actually went to record it, I had to set the metronome based on the time signature changes and I could not figure it out for at least an hour. Then after doing a little bit of counting and math, I figured out it was an alternating pattern of 6/4s and 5/4s in a manner that went up in 1, 2, and 3, then went to 1 measure of each. Recording that part was a pain.” But in the end, the track ended up sounding just as he wanted it to.
