Bloodywood – Nu Delhi | Album Review

There's nothing out there quite like Bloodywood's Indian-folk flavoured style of metal. How does this second album compare to their debut Rakshak?

You might not be immediately familiar with Bloodywood. Not to be confused with the Indian style of filmmaking known as Bollywood. While both hail from the same subcontinent, and they do share some lyrical stylings, one is a film industry known for melodramas, over-the-top action and lavishly staged musical numbers, the other is an Indian folk metal band that set the world alight with their debut album Rakshak back in 2022 that blended nu-metal, folk music, rap metal and songs targeting everything from rape culture to political corruption.

The band found success through word of mouth thanks to their first original song ‘Jee Veerey’, a song about mental health, that was released back in the dim, distant past of 2018. A successful tour and well received album followed. It’s been a long road since then, with the band receiving praise, plaudits and audience approbation all around the world that not even a global pandemic could slow down for long. Now they’re back with the infamously difficult second album called Nu Delhi and there’s one important question to answer – Is it any good?

Nu Delhi isn’t just a bloody(wood) good album, it’s a great album. It takes everything that was good about Rakshak and builds on it. It is an unrelentingly, dare we say mercilessly, upbeat album. It’s an album to headbang to, to pogo to, to throw your fists in the air while you’re on public transport and exhort everyone around you to chant and sing and shout along. Bloodywood as a band, and this album in particular, will appeal to fans of bands like Kontrust, We Butter the Bread with Butter and the kings of party metal Electric Callboy. It’s an album that you can’t listen to without it improving your mood, lead singer Jayant Bhadula’s screaming vocals weaving in and out of rapper Raoul Kerr’s lyrical stylings.

Opening track ‘Halla Bol’ is a statement of intent, a promise that Bloodywood have lost none of their socially consciously, politically charge edge in the years since their last album. This album is a sweeping look over modern India, opening with that rousing cry of “Raise your voice!”, both a powerful anthem for the downtrodden, but also harking back to the death of Safdar Hashmi, an Indian playwright, director and political activist who was killed while putting on a play of the same name.

‘Bekhauf’, which sees Bloodywood collaborating with undisputed queens of kawaii-metal Babymetal, is a meditation on fear and choice. The title means ‘fearless’ in Hindi and was inspired by the understanding that fear is a choice we all have to make, whether to give in to that fear or rise above it.

The album isn’t all political activism and social commentary. ‘Tadka’ (which means to temper) finds the band extolling the virtues of Indian food with lines such as “Vicious and delicious, you don’t wanna miss this / And if you take a bite then you licking all the dishes”. Well, okay, we did tell a tiny fib. There’s still some social commentary sneaking in while everyone is busy eating with the line “About all of the people that be pulling the trigger / ‘Cause they don’t even know if they be eating for dinner / And I’m like, yeah, it’s like I got to care”. Sorry not sorry!

Outside of all the protest songs and social commentary and musings on politics and corruption and the global elite, there’s a simple truth here – Bloodywood make music to lift people up. Music that says that life isn’t that bad and the future is still worth fighting for. Music to remind you that there are people out there just like you, struggling like you, and that as bleak as things might seem in the moment, there’s always hope. Hope, and curry.