  An article I wrote for the MetalIndia 'zine: About a decade back, there was this vision of what extreme metal could be. It would be tight, precise, intricate and immensely heavy. The visceral bludgeon of the music would be matched by uncompromisingly cerebral, thought-provoking lyrics. The vision included a hope that this sound could actually be created right here, in this country, in this city that they call Bangalore, by us, not somewhere else by someone else. Fate had other plans of course. Reality intervened – people had studies, people finished studies and got jobs, people shifted their musical leanings, people stopped playing altogether, and so on.
But at least one of us never did give up on that dream. It might be dedication, or just fixation, but there’s no doubt that it is an inspired madness. For the last 4 years, KP Krishnamoorthy, guitarist, composer and situational vocalist has been fronting his on-again, off-again metal project Mindsnare with a single-minded intensity. Quite early on, he recognized that he had a set of fairly unique ideas about how the whole metal conundrum could be addressed, and that these ideas would not be easy to execute unless he put together an ensemble that was clearly created for this purpose.
That’s when Mindsnare’s first incarnation was created. I was on board at the time, as a bassist and lyrical accomplice. We failed to find a suitable drummer, aborted the project and I moved on to other things. But not before KP put together the Mindsnare:1 mini-album, a self-produced CD with three original songs, including The Uncertainty Principle and one cover. KP played six and four string guitars, sang and programmed the drum parts on this recording. KP has come a long way since those three songs, but they contain, in embryo, everything that the Mindsnare sound is about. Complex, unusually structured songs that use riffage as an orchestral element rather than in the traditional sense of repeated motifs, a predilection for odd time-signatures and exotic scales, and lyrics that reflect a rather introspective take on life and everything that goes with it.
A sound that is very distinct and very KP. I think the recording was done as a sort of ‘last will and testament’, at the time. But it has gained a following, over the years. At this point, fate intervened. The second part of the odd jigsaw that makes up Mindsnare fell into place. Yasmin Kazi, a refugee from the torment of rock n roll singing had decided to give it all up and instead take on the torment of rock n roll drumming.
At this point, KP met her and oddly, enough they decided that she just may be the drummer he’d been looking for. Extreme metal was not an instinctual choice for Yasmin - although she’d heard a wide range of music, she’d usually identified herself more with the classic British metal end of the spectrum. But something about the project appealed to her - the unique mix of utter heaviness with the structural detail and math-rock forays normally associated with prog struck her as a challenge really worth taking up.
It hasn’t been an easy transition, but over the years she has developed an approach to playing drums for Mindsnare that is heavy, laced with intriguing details at the right moments, and very Yasmin. The third part of this puzzle has been that elusive missing link for the longest time. The four-string duties on the songs recorded for the Headbangalore compilation CD were handled by Sam, who has since left to form his own band. The songs from this era were a little more focused than the early material, but not by very much.
Next, old friend and co-conspirator from the fun, clueless kid-metal-band days, Visahan, stepped in as bassist/vocalist. The combination was perfect – personalities gelled, chemistry occurred. New songs were written - including Searching for the Maze and Mirror that reflected a growing confidence and coherence in the way they expressed the vision that has always guided the Mindsnare sound. Sadly, external realities intervened at this point and rendered Visahan unavailable for further musical journeys.
This was when Mindsnare ground to a halt again. But once again, a series of happy coincidences converged and the band are back with a new bassist, Narayan. Again, this sort of extreme metal is not quite his mainstay. He plays for Mindsnare because he finds the basic musical concepts intriguing and challenging. And I would suggest that this is Midnsnare’s greatest strength - rather than being a clan of generic metalheads creating generic metal music, they are an assemblage of musicians from differing traditions who pool their sensibilities to create a unique new alloy of metal. 
