Check out CHAKA's music video for their song "Flak" here!

“Ladies and gentlemen the year is 2020 and with the new year comes the birth of the latest rock sub-genre…. CAVE METAL! Mark Sokoll… bassist of Darkside NYC (as well as the highly-underrated Terminal Confusion from way back in the day) is the main brain behind this four song, ten minute debut which has its share of backstories… “Flak” leads off (check out the video) with a fuzzy bass and some straight outta da cave styled vocals. With so many styles of metal out there to be had cave metal is not that bad of a self-description to be honest with you. What I like about “Neanderthal Tales”is that these songs mix shit up… there is no singular pattern that they stick to. Just for that this EP gets some bonus points.” – In Effect Hardcore Magazine

CHAKA is a side-project from Darkside NYC’s bassist, Mark Sokoll. Their sound is in the vein of old Celtic Frost, Venom, Cro-Mags, and Black Sabbath.

Mark has been playing the bass guitar since 1986 which is the same year he joined Terminal Confusion (NYHC). After playing bass guitar and singing background vocals for numerous other punk and Metal bands in the NYC scene,(Hypoxia, Leeway, The Downlow NYHC, F*Bomb,etc.)

Mark released his first solo EP in December of 2019 titled “Neanderthal Tales”.
Neanderthal Tales is a four-song EP written exclusively by Mark, who was joined by Ty Canon (all guitars) and three different drummers (two of whom are current members of DarksideNYC). Ty also contributed a six-string bass guitar track for the song, “Anthroapology”, as well as providing all of the artwork for the EP and designing the website. Jim Sullivan played drums on two tracks and first recorded with Mark in 2005.

CHAKA’s music is described as “Cro-Magnon Cave Metal mixed with hardcore Punk Rock elements. “This EP features tales of Kamikaze pilot attacks, a history of weapons from the Dawn of Man until modernity, embracing evolution, and finally: hemispheres in conflict.

In Effect Hardcoremagazine described the EP, in part, as:“ Perhaps what Metalheads in leather vests marching down the street with torches would use as their theme songs” and “Gives off a Carnivore vibe with that heavy, heavy bass sound”.

The Neanderthal Tales EP is a return to brutal Heavy Metal with a primal barrage of prehistoric power. Let the regression begin!

Please visit www.neanderthaltales.com to hear the full EP for free, to watch the video for the first single, “Flak”, and to check out all things CHAKA.