Skyharbor

Skyharbor is a progressive metal and djent group that starts out as a bedroom studio project by guitarist Keshav Dhar in New Delhi, India. Its name is a tribute to two of Dhar’s favourite artists, Cloudkicker and Oceansize. The band is active from 2010 and is based in New Delhi and the United States.

Early development and live debut

The band first attracts attention around its debut live performance at the Bacardi NH7 Festival in Pune, where it plays to a crowd of more than 1,000 people and is described as one of the weekend’s highlights. This early profile helps establish Skyharbor as a notable name in Indian progressive metal.

Albums and personnel changes

Skyharbor releases its debut album, Blinding White Noise : Illusion and Chaos, in 2012. The record features Dan Tompkins of Tesseract as guest vocalist on most tracks, along with other guests including Marty Friedman, formerly of Megadeth. Tompkins later becomes the band’s permanent vocalist. After Nikhil Rufus leaves the project, Krishna Jhaveri of Goddess Gagged joins on bass. In June 2015, drummer Anup Sastry leaves because of scheduling conflicts with Intervals and is replaced by Aditya Ashok, who also drums for OX7GEN.

Line-up

The group includes Daniel Tompkins, Eric Emery and Devesh Dayal, and is identified as a djent, experimental and progressive metal act. Its sound is also associated with progressive rock and math metal.