Demonic Resurrection’s 2025 lineup: (from left to right) Demonstealer, Aditya Swaminathan, Swarnava Sengupta, Nikhil Rajkumar. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
Change is in the air for Mumbai extreme metal band Demonic Resurrection (DR), who are performing at Bangalore Open Air in February with an all-new lineup, and have a possible tour in the works to mark 25 years in action.
Founding member Demonstealer aka Sahil Makhija has been the only constant since 2000. He recruited guitarist Aditya Swaminathan from metal bands Gutslit and Kill The King in 2022 and is now joined by bassist Swarnava Sengupta from prog metal band Shred xXx (both performed with DR at Mumbai gig series Scarfest in December 2024) and most recently, Chennai drummer Nikhil Rajkumar from bands like Ksetravid and Godless. “This is the 2025 lineup of Demonic Resurrection. It might become the permanent lineup but for now, it’s the 2025 lineup,” Demonstealer says.
Rajkumar steps into DR after longtime drummer Virendra Kaith officially left in 2023, although the outgoing drummer did perform at Scarfest as well, alongside former keyboardist Mephisto to celebrate 10 years since the release of their album The Demon King. The goal with Demonic Resurrection this year is to “give it everything,” as the founder says. Pointing out that a band only gets to mark 25 years in action once. “We kind of want to celebrate this milestone of the band with all the fans, wherever it is possible. And then, we’ll see where we go from there,” he says.
For starters, they have a 40-minute set planned at long-running metal festival Bangalore Open Air, taking place on Feb. 8, 2025. Demonstealer jokes about what it’s like to fit in 25 years of the band’s music across albums like A Darkness Descends, The Return to Darkness and The Demon King and Dashavatar. In 2022, they also released four new songs as part of their Decades of Darkness EP. It also marks a Demonic Resurrection Bengaluru show after perhaps nearly a decade. The setlist at Bangalore Open Air included songs from the Indian mythology-inspired album Dashavatar (“We never got to play in Bangalore for that album,” the founder says) and best-known songs like “The Unrelenting Surge of Vengeance” and “Apocalyptic Dawn.”
With members spread out in different cities, Demonstealer plans to get in at least a couple of rehearsals before they get on stage at Bangalore Open Air. “The good thing is now everyone can record their practice session, send it to me, so we can tweak things before we actually end up in the jam room before the gig,” he adds.
With this lineup and the 25th anniversary of the band, Demonstealer is plotting a tour this year. DR last toured the U.K. in 2019 with guitarist Vigneshkumar Venkatraman and a lineup of local artists like drummer Rodion Belshevits and bassist Simon McAuliffe.
