The dark heart of Pakistan: A photographer explores the heavy metal scene across the border

Photography and music have always gone together. Adoring fans, Annie Leibovitz, Mick Rock and Anton Corbijn to name just a few, have become accomplished photographic artists by capturing the images of their favourite musicians and bands.

It’s hard to imagine jazz of a certain era separated from photography. In the ‘50s and ‘60s record labels like Blue Note, Verve and Riverside created a luscious and sexy aura around their records by the use of bold photography and modern design.

In India, the environmental portraits that Raghu Rai has made of some of India’s finest classical musicians are among his best work. Both arts – music and photography – are powerful in their own right. But when the visual is combined with the audio the result can be especially luxurious and pleasing. Even profound.

Turn your mind to Pakistani music and what pops up? Qawwali at an urs or urbane ghazal evenings, more than likely. But what about Industrial, Funeral Doom and Grindstone? The audiences may be minuscule (at the moment) and the wild-haired stars completely anonymous beyond their cultish followers, but the underground metal scene is growing in the Land of the Pure.

And one self-confessed metal head has, over the past several years, turned his camera onto the bands and dimly lit stages of this scene. The resulting images, a few of which we share here, provide a fascinating insight into a small but growing adventitious subculture.

Ramis Abbas is a photographer from Lahore who initially studied business.But his passion for Mother Rock’s most unruly and aggressive offspring, as well as a love of photography, saw him turn professional shooter a year ago. Abbas is pretty straightforward about why the metal scene is his subject" “No one else is documenting it.”

Abbas’s photographs capture the bands of the Pakistani metal scene in full flight and convey the urgent energy of the scene. You can’t help but share the pent-up emotions and experience the release the music brings to fans and players alike. Shot without flash, using just the flood lights, his dark photos ably reflect the tenebrous nature of the underground.

The Pakistan metal scene stretches back to the early 1990s when groups such as Kosmos, Seth and Autopsy Gothic began playing, initially in Karachi. As music clubs are virtually non-existent, the scene has had to develop organically from small domestic venues, with more often than not, the support of siblings and parents. Indeed, according to Abbas it is not unusual to see proud parents show up in the darkened halls to watch their sons eviscerate the evening with their wild goings-on. One band in particular, Dusk, found some success, landing a record deal with an international label and touring Europe.

In a country where approved culture is confined to narrow and conservative spaces, the arrival of heavy metal with its unapologetic volume, Goth-like Western attire and taboo-shattering lyrics has, perhaps not surprisingly, found fertile ground among a cynical youth. Abbas suggests the music creates an opportunity for self-expression and acts like social outlet.

Perhaps the reason why this scene is flourishing is the tendency of the state to restrict expression. You can only heat water to a [certain] extent. It afterwards changes the nature of its existence. Perhaps the state can only stop people from speaking to an extent. They’ll speak, eventually.

As a fan, Abbas has attended most gigs and shows in Lahore and Islamabad, the cities with the strongest scenes. As a photographer he realised that no one was seriously documenting the scene and took it upon himself to do so.

This is a very strong musical movement, something that is bound to create a positive effect on the music scene particularly in this part of the world. As a photographer, my job is to explore the diversity of human opinion and expression. The metal scene produces radical, resistive and open themes and talks about issues that aren’t really explored in our society.

Most of the band members are from the elite upper class strata of society. Such family connections must, to some extent, protect the bands and the entire scene from a quick crackdown by the Thought Police. While the musicians are exclusively male at the moment, Abbas is hopeful that women, who do attend the shows in growing numbers, will eventually be able to join the men on stage.

By definition the metal scene is mainly an underground affair. But larger public events, with scary names like Hellfest and Mentally Murdered, are popping up to showcase the music. While officialdom is generally kept at bay due to the word-of-mouth nature of the shows, Abbas recalls a failed raid by the excise department on one public show,as an example of the cat and mouse games the bands and fans play with authorities.

According to Abbas, the hard-hitting but refreshingly frank songs of many of the bands are a key attraction to the audience. Political events of the day often get woven into the lyrics, such as this from the popular Multinational Corporations. The song is a response to the months-long civil disruptions of 2014 orchestrated by Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement of Justice) party which the former cricketer repeatedly equated to a flood (salaab).

Years have gone by, nothing seems to change
Locked up in this cage while our spirits, they rage
Face to face with fate, intoxicated on hate
Time to break free, time to take control?
No angel, no god
No messenger, no khalifa
Only ourselves lest we turn to dust
No one will save us
Fuck your revolution, Fuck your inquilaab
Badalapnisoch, phirayegasalaab
(Fuck your revolution. If you change your mindset, then the real flood will come)

What does the future hold for metal music in Pakistan? Abbas feels that the scene is going from strength to strength, in large part due to the music’s perceived authenticity. “The themes are socio-political, so people are able to relate to it.” Coke Studio and Nescafe Basement, the two popular TV based music shows speak to their own audiences, but “when we talk about the underground scene, heavy metal prevails due to its exotic outlook and its relevance to the realities of the day.”