Hitting the right note

A FORMER Bahrain resident is creating musical ripples in a local community in Sydney, Australia, where he currently resides.

Tibu Thomas is preparing for the international release of his new album with Visualis, his independent melodic metal band. Rites of the Eclipse is in the final stages of recording and will be available online this year.

The 11-track album is inspired by the five band members’ personal journeys of loss, hope, death and dreams, and truths and myths.

“Our sound is a blend of speed, power, folk, melo-death (melodic death metal) and doom metal, but we keep it melodic all the way,” the Australia-based musician and lead vocalist of Visualis told GulfWeekly.

“This (album) has been in the making for a while, with a lot of blood, sweat and tears.”

Visualis was formed when guitarist John Browne and bassist Zoran Sukara met and bonded over mutual interests at Paradise Lost, an English gothic metal band’s concert. The band was a quartet until 2023 when Tibu joined.

The 37-year-old recorded War and Pain, his first song with them, which also happens to be the first single of the upcoming album. 

“Our guitarists made the creative decision of taking a step back from vocals, which is when I stepped in and there was a shift in tone, sound and style. War and Pain was released to depict this transition in Visualis’ career,” added the professional architect who works full-time as a design technician.

Coma is another song from the album that’s close to Tibu’s heart. He penned down the lyrics seven years ago and is bringing it to life on Rites of the Eclipse with Visualis.

“The song is about a person that’s in coma and death has come to take him away, but turns out he’s worse than death and scares the latter to the point where they come up with a truce and he becomes the reaper on earth,” he noted.

Visualis, a five-piece band formed in 2018, has a diverse lineup of members, including Irish, Polish, Serbian, Indian and Mexican, each bringing their own influences. Much like Tibu’s first band Ethereal Realm, which also consists of members from different cultural backgrounds. 

“Visualis is my second band that has actually come to the forefront now,” he said.

“My first is Ethereal Realm, a power, heavy metal band from Sydney. We released a four-track EP in 2022 titled Enter the Realm, which serves as an introduction to our music and was themed around fantasy, time, individuality and emotions. We are currently writing and composing new music and plan to start recording a full-length album soon,” Tibu revealed.

The artist, musician and songwriter had penned down Nightmare, when he was 23 years old, at the cusp of career and life decisions.

“I was stuck in my first job in India. My family was abroad and my friends from university were migrating. I had applied to go to the UK before I got my acceptance letter to study in Australia. So, there was a lot happening and I channelled all my emotions into the song,” he explained.

Tibu’s love for music, especially the heavy metal genre, deepened on one of his visits to Bahrain.

In 2003, he was in the kingdom on a holiday when he met Amogh Kulkarni, his school mate and best friend, who gifted him a cassette of Linkin Park’s Meteora. The artist believes it was a pivotal point that set him on a trajectory to seek and discover more and more styles of music.

Tibu also discovered his artistic streak in the kingdom during his formative years, living with his family - father K N Thomas who worked at the Royal Court, mother Rosamma who was a nurse in Salmaniya Hospital, and his older sister Bitu - until he left for India in 1999.

“Though I took keyboard lessons for some years, my fondest memories of Bahrain include participating in numerous drawing competitions,” he said.

“I won contests organised by Air India and Unesco, among others, and my cartoons were published in the local papers.

“I learned a lot during those years and am still in touch with my artistic side. I came up with the logo for Ethereal Realm and also designed our debut album cover,” he added.

Tibu currently lives in Sydney with his wife Tuende Szalay, a university researcher with a doctorate in linguistics.

When he isn’t working or spending time with family, you will find him jamming with his bands.

You can listen to his music on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube, among other platforms.

For details, follow @visualis_official and @etherealrealmofficial on Instagram.