Jimmy Daimari splits his time between Bangalore and Guwahati. He plays guitar and writes song. His new single ‘Onthai’ is under his moniker ‘Dwi’ and lives very much in the now well-lived space of instrumental modern prog metal. This stuff in known for things we repeat to each other all the time these days; the production, songwriting, epic riffs, thick tones and so on. What ended up killing the genre at its height was the space forgetting its own humanity. Technical prowess went beyond what might have been more important, which was writing good, emotionally useful songs. ‘Onthai’ is that.

This is his third single. It has all the ingredients you’d expect from the first few seconds of the track, which are a strong, epic riff-fuelled experience of modern prog. But over the course of the tune, some interesting thing start happening. Of course, Dwi has chops. He layers some nice riffs over the very heavy, thick drum sounds. But beyond the arpeggios and strategic shredding, what makes the song work is the open, big ol’ chords in between. This is an artists who isn’t given over to showing off or making the genre so cool it’s no longer palatable. The only artists who have survived till today have done, and so does he. The moments where he just lets a riff speak and almost become a service to what he has written is where ‘Onthai’ has its best moments. And hey, there are breakdowns and djenty bits aplenty for the crowd too. So yeah, it’s a great track!