India’s independent music magazine
Feature
Five bands from the capital: a cabaret-rock outfit, a Hindi rock favourite, the pioneers of Indian fusion rock, a band that toured with Iron Maiden and a prog-leaning newer name.
Delhi has produced some of India's longest-running rock bands, and its newer acts sing in Hindi, Urdu and English to festival crowds across the country.
This list covers five Delhi bands, from early-1990s pioneers still on stage to groups that rose in the streaming era.
Each entry covers who they are and three tracks to play first.
For more on the city, see Delhi Indie Scene: Bands, Rappers and Labels and 5 Legendary Indian Rock Bands Every Fan Should Know.
Peter Cat Recording Co. is an alternative rock band from Delhi, founded in 2009 around singer and guitarist Suryakant Sawhney. It grew into a five-piece with drummer Karan Singh, bassist Dhruv Bhola, Rohit Gupta on keyboards and trumpet and multi-instrumentalist Kartik Sundareshan.
The band's sound mixes rock with cabaret, jazz and indie pop. Its records include Sinema (2011), Bismillah (2019) and Beta (2024), and the compilation Portrait of a Time: 2010–2016 gathers its early songs.
Essential tracks
The Local Train formed in Chandigarh in 2008 and has been based in New Delhi since 2015. It writes mainly in Hindi and Urdu, and longtime frontman Raman Negi left in April 2022; the band continues with Paras Thakur, Ramit Mehra and Sahil Sarin.
Its debut album Aalas Ka Pedh (2015) and the follow-up Vaaqif (2018) both ranked among the most-streamed rock albums on Apple Music India, and the band is a regular at Indian festivals such as Bacardi NH7 Weekender.
Essential tracks
Indian Ocean formed in New Delhi in 1990 and is widely seen as the pioneer of fusion rock in India, setting ragas and folk songs against rock guitars and drums. Rahul Ram is the one member left from the debut-era line-up.
Its key recordings include the live set Desert Rain (1997), the album Kandisa (2000) and the soundtrack for Black Friday (2004), and the band's music also reached Peepli Live (2010).
Parikrama formed in Delhi in 1991 around brothers Subir Malik on keyboards and Nitin Malik on vocals. In 2007 it toured with Iron Maiden and played the Download Festival in England.
Rolling Stone India put its 2001 song "But It Rained" on a 2014 list of the greatest Indian rock songs. Across three decades the band has released mostly standalone singles rather than albums.
Antariksh is a New Delhi rock band founded by Varun Rajput in 2012. Its debut album Khoj arrived in 2013 and a second album, Quest, in December 2024.
Between those records the band built a steady run of Hindi singles, among them "Kaahe Re" (2018) and "Jee Le Zara" (2020), and in 2026 it released "Naaqis" with guitarist Jakub Zytecki.
Essential tracks
Related reading is linked in the article above.
