Workshop: Made Love To The Dragon

Mumbai heavy metal diehards play silly buggers

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Part of the appeal of unearthing heavy music from foreign lands is that the universality of metal culture usually ensures that there is little scope for anything to be lost in translation. Unfortunately, comedy does not travel quite so well, and so Mumbai’s Workshop face a fairly stiff challenge when it comes to winning new converts this far away from their homeland.

Musically this is a competent and intermittently inventive blend of metal traditionalism and raw, simplistic thrash, with plenty of lobotomised hooks and occasional detours into slightly more perverse and esoteric territory.

Lyrically, however, Made Love To The Dragon consists primarily of cultural references that will mean little to anyone outside the subcontinent. There is a level of silliness on display during the likes of Bhoot Bungla and Blues Motion that borders on infectious, but only seasoned travellers will feel like making return visits.

Dom Lawson
Writer

Dom Lawson has been writing for Metal Hammer and Prog for over 14 years and is extremely fond of heavy metal, progressive rock, coffee and snooker. He also contributes to The Guardian, Classic Rock, Bravewords and Blabbermouth and has previously written for Kerrang! magazine in the mid-2000s.