Stigmata (Sri Lankan band)
With bass player Shehan Gray and drummer Anik Jayasekara, they released their first single, "Fear", which topped the local radio rock-chart show.
The band released their first EP, Morbid Indiscretion, in 2002, containing the singles "The Dying Winter Sleeps" and "Thicker Than Blood" plus the instrumental "Andura" which was inspired by the traditional Gajaga Wannama.
The success of the original singles released up to this point culminated in the band launching their first album, Hollow Dreams, in August 2003 on the local "Rock Company" label.
In late 2004 the band also recorded the successful[citation needed] acoustic track titled "Lucid" which made innovative use of the Indian tabla, played by Sri Lankan percussionist Jananath Warakagoda.
Silent Chaos Serpentine was an evolutionary step showcasing the band’s ability to compose intricate pieces that were memorable and also palpable to a global audience with a unique sound and style SCS placed the ensemble toe to toe with the global metal community, receiving rave reviews around the world in the US, UK, Australia, Germany, Japan, Middle East and many other countries.
The release of SCS was followed up by concerts in the Maldive Islands (The Rock Storm Festival) in June 2006 making them the first Sri Lankan based Metal/Rock band to tour internationally.
The band was interviewed and asked to perform "A Dead Rose Wails for Light" for Ian Wright's Out of Bounds, a travel series on the Discovery Channel.
The band was interviewed and asked to perform "A Dead Rose Wails for Light" for Ian Wright's Out of Bounds, a travel series on the Discovery Channel.
The album was ground breaking and genre busting becoming popular enough to help Stigmata get a tour of Australia as part of the prestigious Melbourne International Arts Festival under the artistic direction of Brett Sheehy in October 2010 and performing at the historic Forum Theatre Melbourne alongside Dead Meadow (USA), Blarke Bayer / Black Widow (Australia), making them the first-ever Sri Lankan heavy metal band to tour there.
Psalms of Conscious Martyrdom was hailed as a more complex body of work fusing psyche metal with a more robust and adventurous progressive element resulting in the album becoming a global underground sensation, receiving rave reviews wowrldwide in US, Australia, UK, Germany, Scandinavia, Asia and the Middle East.
The quartet now consisting of Suresh, Tenny, Thisara and Hafzel released a new anthem “Heavy is the Head that Wears the Crown” to much acclaim, with Kasun Nawaratne producing the single.
The song was a tribute penned inspired by Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War and Stigmata was the first Lankan band to have one of their videos aired at a movie premier prior to the film played at the cinema.
While all live events were cancelled indefinitely for over 2 years, Stigmata continued with their stringent work ethic, rehearsed and recorded new hit singles; the emoptional “Alyssa” in 2019, “Sacred Spaces: Solve et Coagula” in 2020 and “Throw Glass in a House of Stone” in 2021, mixed and mastered by Grammy nominated producer Romesh Dodangoda.
Stigmata broke the post pandemic hiatus in 2022 tying up with Guinness and a host of other partners and organized and played two sold out shows “Unchained Melody” in March and “Arise” in June in Sri Lanka.
