Formed in 2012, Squirt Guns are made up of Sandesh Shakya (on the guitar and vocals), Abhinash Shrestha (on the bass and backing vocals) and Dipesh Gurung (on the drums). Childhood friends Shakya and Shrestha grew up as teens who liked listening to pop punk bands. And while their taste for music evolved over time, they wanted to form a punk band of their own.

They put up a “drummer-wanted” notice on Facebook, and Gurung filled the spot.

Squirt Guns’ first album, Slide to Unlock (the title, a mockery of people’s growing obsession for the iPhone) was released in 2013. The DIY hardcore album is a compilation of 15 songs in which the tracks range from varying lengths of 51 seconds to four minutes. The loud and fast numbers express today’s youths’ frustration with the malpractices in the society. Their song Microbus, for example, humours the insufficiency of public vehicles to cater to the ever-increasing population in Kathmandu. The lyrics talk about how people are forced to ‘deposit’ themselves over each other due to the lack of space. Another song from the record, Guilty Victim, advocates for a girl raped and impregnated, and subsequently disregarded by society for a sin she did not commit. Similarly, Bhedalaya is a song that questions the Nepali education system.

“We are not against anything except racism, sexism and nationalism. We support equality for all and that is what our songs are about. Punk rock is something we can relate to, something that lets us be who we are. It’s unadulterated by the ill-practices of society,” say the band.

The band are working on their second album, titled The Departure. The album will have a total of eight songs, some of which are hardcore in style—created immediately after their first album—and the rest, post-rock.

“The album is titled The Departure, as it signifies our departure from our earlier work. We’ve been listening to an assorted list of bands like Toe, Skarp and Downfall of Kaya, and have been experimenting more with our music. Our first album had more words, this one has more music, more melody,” the band members say.

Temptation, a track from the new record, is one where the progressive pattern of a post-rock song meets hardcore. The seven-and-a-half-minute song starts off with a melodic riff and soon the drum picks up. There isn’t much variation—typical of a post-rock number—as the composition is like a constant loop. The vocals enter in the second half of the song, in the form of screams. Listening to the song, for me, was an engrossing journey and I could relate to it as—just like life—it has its highs and lows; it is harsh and subtle at the same time.

Another song from the album, Two Faced, is very different from Temptation and has a part where an instrumental version of a popular folk song Suntali Mai is played, making it a funky listen.

The band say that the recording of the songs for the album has already been completed. Some of the tracks are also available for download on Soundcloud. They say they aren’t concerned about copyrights.

Here is one band who is doing it for the sake of self-expression and doing what they love. The punk scene in Nepal might be close to non-existent, but with Squirt Guns and a handful of other bands, the scene is at least not dead.

“We do not label ourselves as punks; we do what we do because we love it and will continue making music for as long as we can,” the band say.