Growls from the War zone

"For how long will we keep hiding and not express ourselves? Music is a way of expressing what we feel about everything and saying it," says Pedram, who is a regular at the Sound Central Music Festival in Kabul, a sort of secret music festival that is not announced through banners in colleges, but through texts, and discussed in hushed tones before it takes place in a basement. This counterculture in, arguably, the world's most riotous city, has the young Afghans sitting up and taking notice. "There is a lot of anger in the people and they consider music a way of letting it out. You should see them at our gigs, headbanging and grooving to what we create," says Yusoof.

The band also played with masks on for a quite a while. "We listen to your songs (Bollywood music) too, but metal is their calling," iterates Beard, a musician himself.

The band was formed in 2008 when two cousins, Lemar Saifullah and Qais Shaqasi, met the Foushanji brothers, Pedram and Qasem, through Australian filmmaker and musician Beard. "We were a bunch of students who wanted to play music. In fact, we composed weird stuff in the beginning. We learnt everything while making music," says Pedram, who adds that their initial audience comprised expats and aid workers .

Their repertoire for India includes songs such as Joy vs sorrow and The dying bride, the former being a verse by Kahlil Gibran. The boys do not wear their masks any more, distorting it like no Afghan has ever done it before. It is time. And they are ready to let go.

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