Premiere: Don’t Miss New Delhi Band Aarlon’s New Album ‘Dafan’

There’s no beating around the bush when it comes to Aarlon. The band’s brand new record, Dafan, will absolutely obliterate you, in all of the right ways of course. It includes eight new songs, all well composed, featuring high-level songwriting with musings on modern angst, melancholy, and spirituality.

Based in New Delhi, India, the group is one of the very few metal acts left in the country that perform all of their songs in Indian. Think of it as “dark” metal, songs that look at the more shadowy side of the human perspective, the place that we typically keep all to ourselves. Their goal with Dafan is to bring forward a new musical point of view in India when it comes to heavy metal and show those who ignore or denounce the genre as hollow or empty that this is music that really matters.

Describing the album at its core, the band shares:

“Dafan represents a confession or (at times) a suicide note stripped from any censorship or restraint. The album creates the perfect soundtrack to the explorations of the dark psyche, overwhelming hopelessness, and bare self-reflection. The melancholia and an unexplainable nostalgia strongly persist and become the vibe of the record.”

To make their brand of metal relatable, Aarlon incorporates a wide palette of sounds into what they do, like celestial guitars, upbeat rhythms, and soaring vocals. The darkness in their lyrics is very much inspired by the early grunge and alternative rock innovators of the first part of the 1990s. The band has put a lot of work into their sound over the last five years, with a lot of experimentation, refinement, and challenges that they have overcome. This has powered them forward into their current incarnation, feeling the confidence to transform complex musical structures into relatable sounds.

If you’re a metal connoisseur, or you’re a total noob, you can easily jump right into what Aarlon is feeding you.

Dafan Track Listing:

1. Vidroh (Rebellion)
2. Panchhi (Birds)
3. Rok Lo (Stop Me)
4. Tu (You)
5. Saavan (Monsoon)
6. Aaina (Mirror)
7. Inquilaab (Uprising)
8. Dafan (Burial)

Artwork for the album ‘Dafan’ by Aarlon