Band info
Band: Uganga
Album: ‘Ganeshu‘
Released: May 9th, 2025
Genre: crossover, hardcore
Location: Brazil
Review
One thing every leftist metal (and punk too, really) fan goes through is the inevitable reckoning with old favourites who have turned sketch. We’ve all been there – many founding parents of our genres are now racist MAGA asshats, Zionist genocide apologists, TERFs, or worse. And while most were already like that and we just didn’t notice, like some Rotten idiots, in some cases they actually turned coats. Black metal has the unfortunate example of Sarcófago, where nearly every member, from philocommunists in the 80s, has turned hard right, with Wagner Antichrist currently a raging Bolsonaro supporter and anti-“woke” crusader.
Fortunately, some of our old heroes do stick to our side of the trenches, and today’s album, ‘Ganeshu’ by UGANGA, is a prime example of that. Founded as Ganga Zumba in the olden days of 1993 and led since then by vocalist Manu Joker, former drummer of Sarcófago, they bring us a highly weird form of crossover/groove that has sprinkles of, well, everything and the kitchen sink. There’s echoes of vaguely oriental music, early Skyclad riffing, and a last track that would fit in any mid-2000s Brazilian hip-hop album, to mention just a few. The whole album has a lot of Afro-Brazilian religious symbolism, made more clear in “Exu Não Passa Pano” (“Exu Doesn’t Whitewash”, Exu being an important entity of change and struggle in Yoruba myth demonized by Christianity), whose lyrics might also be the most political in an album which is VERY clear about its leftist sensibilities.
All in all, ‘Ganeshu’ is very different from what we’ve usually worked with in the ABMN, which is always something that makes us happy. If you like Sepultura or Ratos de Porão, dive in and be happy!
Other links and platforms:
BC: https://uganga.bandcamp.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/ugangaofficial/
Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ugangaofficial
LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/Uganga