Veteran metal frontman Nitin Rajan of Primitiv fame has passed away on Tuesday night following a prolonged battle with cancer. Primitiv has confirmed this through their official Facebook page and has also asked to ‘request the privacy of his family and friends at this unfortunate time.’
Tributes started pouring in from the moment the news broke out of his demise. Riju Dasgupta, co-founder, and bassist of Primitiv, wrote a heartfelt post on his Facebook feed dedicated to his friend’s memory.
An old school metal purist, Nitin grew up in Mumbai listening to classic extreme metal records right from his high school days. In 1998, he started with death metal outfit Morticide and then quickly went on to set up an underground metal festival called Dominion – The Deathfest, in the year 2000. He had also briefly been a part of Mumbai based death/grindcore act Reptilian Death, which is led by fellow metal veteran Sahil Makhija aka Demonstealer. The Demonic Resurrection frontman took to social media to pen down his thoughts, ‘I remember it as the day I saw it, at IIT Bombay either ’98 or ’99. This band was on stage playing, they were called Morticide and this massive voice hit me from the stage. That was my introduction to Nitin Rajan. I will never forget their cover of Sepultura’s The Hunt that night and I couldn’t believe what a monstrous voice he had.’
Nitin formed Primitiv along with Riju back in 2013, after meeting the latter the previous year. They released their debut record ‘Immortal and Vile‘ in 2016 to critical acclaim, and also contributed to Nitin winning the Best Vocalist award at the Rolling Stone Metal awards the very same year. Sahil then said ‘Nitin was one of the cool guys in the scene, he was older than me and he had his band and I remember going to see Morticide at Razz and he was probably the first Indian death metal vocalist I heard. And I wanted to sound as deep and vicious as he did and be as good a vocalist.’
Former Undying Inc vocalist Shashank Bhatnagar wrote on Facebook, ‘As I type this, I’m literally in tears that I can’t stop. Left too soon, my man. We had to hang out way lot more.. #IndianMetal lost it’s most iconic voice and quite possibly, the nicest, down to earth guy to exist here. Thank you for the music & memories. I’d lift & write to your name today, but this is gonna leave a scar.’ His former bandmate and graphic artist Reuben Bhattacharya aka Visual Amnesia released an artwork dedicated in tribute to the late vocalist.
Revered for his deep beastly growl, Nitin Rajan was also the Vice President and Head of Digital Media at Radio City. During his tenure, Nitin fronted Radio City Freedom Awards, the ultimate recognition and celebration of the best Indian independent artists and music from across the country, irrespective of languages and genres. When asked about the future of Primitiv, Riju said with an air of uncertainty ‘A lot of well-meaning individuals, media, friends, and metalheads have asked me about the future of Primitiv, and the official statement is that we don’t know. Kiron Kumar, Rajarshi Bhattacharyya, Pushkar Joshi and I will continue to make music in some form or the other, going forward, but that’s a question for much later when we’re in a better frame of mind. Right now, we want to come to terms with the loss of someone who meant a great deal to us, and we want to celebrate his memory.
Keep the flame burning!’
Listen to ‘World War Zero’ by Primitiv
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