There’s no doubt that Agni (Fire) was one of the few bands of the first wave of the Indian Rock music scene. Bharat Swamy, an ex member of the band is best known as the founder and the lead singer/composer and songwriter of the band. Besides him there was also Pravin Bell and Juggie. Formed in 1985, the trio brought on Rustom (Ross) Kayani and Kaustubh (Koko) Dhavale in 1992. 

Swamy has continued his Rock endeavor and has recently released The Monster Within 2 which portrays the conclusion part of Monster Within-1 which deals with his own journey through depression and the process through which he overcame the same with the assistance of Music.

The track is overpoweringly Melody driven and has a great color and presence to the same. The vocals is power laden and is predominantly Bharath’s own unique style of singing and is pretty evident how his voice has matured over the past 30 odd years from their single Darkening Light, to their debut album ‘Wind Dance With Fire’ (1993) through Virgo Music record label (Navin Salian) to the most recent Monster Within-2.

Agni was extremely popular with youngsters and had a huge fan following during the 1990s. With another album titled ‘Mrityunjaya - Victor Over Death’ to be released soon, the band was on a high, when tragedy struck. The band saw the unfortunate death of bassist Nitin Jagtap (Juggie) and their manager Mandar Alurkar (Mandy) in a car accident on 15^th May 1995. Bharat was inconsolable and left the country to travel, come to terms and move ahead in life.

25 years hence, Bharat was faced with the situation of having to work from home, owing to the COVID-19 situation. With ample time on his hands, he worked in complete quarantine and released a cover version of the Michael Jackson’s Earth Song, which crossed in excess of a 1000 hits within the first few hours of its release on 30^th April 2020. The video had a social message of COVID-19 and has received astounding reviews on its vocal, audio and video compilation.

This sparked an idea and led to the launch of Agni webbed (A Digital Rock venture). Bharat released his 2^nd song (an original composition) also from his quarantined place of residence, re-worked from his first album and called The Monster Within. He used the theme of depression to reach out to all those who may be going through a tough situation in these difficult times. It also throws light on the need for people with depression to seek help.

The genre which Bharath concentrates on is now being termed as Rock ‘n’ Soul. The music video is very apt and compliments the song in totality and drives home the point. Bharath plans to release another 6 tracks by this year end to complete the album. 2023 would see the inception of Agni Webbed in LIVE concerts at various Indian cities to promote the said album.

An audio version Monster Within-2 can also be found on Sound Cloud, subsequently a release on Spotify and Apple music is on the cards.

Click on the link below to listen to the lyric music video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO_2jBV0aRo

By Verus Ferreira