‘The Veiler’ Is A Mythic, Sludge Metal Descent Into Midhaven’s Heaviest Form Yet

'The Veiler' marks a bold and deliberate evolution for Mumbai-based Psych/Sludge Metal band Midhaven. While the band retains its signature sonic ferocity, the new single stretches their sound into darker, deeper terrain, revealing a raw intensity that sets it apart from their acclaimed 2021 concept album Of Lotus The Lotus & The Thunderbolt.

Sonic departures aside, 'The Veiler' stays true to one of Midhaven’s most defining impulses: the weaving of Indian mythology and philosophy into dense, riff-driven metal. Written on Raag Todi — a scale rooted in the Dhrupad tradition — the song bears an unmistakable Indian classical undercurrent, its oratory vocals cutting through the mix like an incantation. 

That heaviness is not only sonic, but lyrical. The song’s verses — “Look how in your name / Orange now weighs / More than red / Look how in your name / They kill me / But the head grows back” — evoke a sharp contemporary commentary. Myth bleeds into modernity as the track exposes the ways in which divinity, power and identity are weaponised. The imagery of renewal (“the head grows back”) hints at resistance, rebirth, and an inextinguishable voice rising from attempted erasure.

Recorded at Island City Studios in Mumbai, the improvised guitar solo becomes a moment of pure rupture — a spontaneous, cathartic tearing open of the song’s core emotion. As with previous releases, Midhaven joined forces with celebrated Australian producer Forrester Savell (Animals As Leaders, Karnivool), who mixed and mastered the track, and artist Gaurav Basu (Acid Toad), whose visual sensibilities continue to build the band’s mythic-metal universe.

Since their formation in 2011–12 and their early signing with Universal Music Group, Midhaven have consistently pushed into new territory, blending Indian classical textures, esoteric philosophy, and progressive metal. 'The Veiler' is more than a sonic leap; it is a confrontation, an invocation, and a refusal to be silenced. Finally, the Veiler is a layered unmasking of arrogance in all its ancient and modern forms, wrapped in a wall of noise that is as punishing as it is purposeful.

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