Pan-world dark metalists Mahavatar play tomorrow night's Medusa Festival at CBGB. I caught Mahavatar about a month ago opening for Ice-T and Body Count at the Knitting Factory and really enjoyed the show. Here is a link to pictures from and a review of the show. The Medusa Festival has a great lineup and tickets are cheap at $10 dollars. The full lineup can be found on the festival website. I am expecting highlights to be Mahavatar, GSX and Lourds.

I just picked up Mahavatar's Escapi Music debut From the Sun, the Rain, the Wind, the Soil and it is really a great CD. The dark metal label that I used earlier to describe the band really doesn't do them justice as their songs are much more diverse and melodic than a 'traditional' death/dark metal band. Vocalist Lizza Hasan sings with the genre-typical growl but her vocal range extends from a growl all the way to a soft croon. Raw, which is the third track on the CD really stands out because of Hasan's wide vocal range. In addition to standout vocals, the other members of the band play in a diversity of styles. The band's sounds ranges from standard thrash to hypnotic "trance" metal with a Middle Eastern feel. Other standout tracks on this disc include By The Numbers and The Time Has Come. This is a strong disc by a great local band.

In this music section of this wek's TimeOut New York, they write "don't sleep on killer local metal band Mahavatar".