Side A of the Cassette:
The opening track 'Rotting Youth' shows the listener what to expect.
Brutal Black Metal from these young guys from Indonesia.
I was at first skeptical on how good this band is as my friend was introducing this band to me. This is a cassette by the way they don't have any CDs out. It was the reason why i put off getting this album in the first place and had to wait for the 2nd shipment to come in. But black vocals and growled vocal and 3..YES 3 female vocalist, Julie, Hana and Vera makes this album a worthy listen. This shows how good 4 talented guys with a drum machine can churn out. Although the drumming are on made on a drum machine, I don't think anyone can differentiate without being told first. Every song packs Melody with Brutality...step back Horde, step back Emperor, Step back Old Man's Child, here is Kekal...the band worth looking out for.
'Armageddon' is my personal favorite, it has heavy black metal with
melodic female vocals. Starts with 2 beats of the percussion, then the
brutality comes in...growled "Deceiver of this world beware, tremble in
your heart, you sacred" with the black vocal "New world order. all shall fall, But the Armies
of God stand tall" bold upfront lyrics combines with brutality makes this
album a MUST in every metelhead out there. Even I who don't buy cassettes
didn't regret buying this album.
The first female vocals if the whole album come in here, it is very heavenly :
"When God destroy all heavens, No star will be reserved"
"Fire came down from Heaven, No evil thing shall survived"
Every female vocalist on this album packs a punch with their angelic
voices
(personally I would love to meet the owners of these voices)
It consist of a powerful solo which reminds me of Old Man's Child!
"Spirits" is a song about unblack metal and it starts off with a atmospheric
keyboards and the guitar comes in, in a slow fashion. Then the beat is
picked and the songs transform into a fast heavy black metal track.
'Praise Him who conquer death, Praise him who defeat satan'
'Jesus Christ who destroyed satan's head, crush his ugly head, VICTORY'
"Deceived Minds" tells a story of a lifelong worship of wrong idols,
something very common in the Muslim country of Indonesia
where black magic is practiced in many tribes in the rural areas. Brutal
guitars kicks off the track, dominated mainly by unblack vocal and HEAVY
as a ton of bricks and FAST as lightning guitars. Black shrieks can be
found heavily utilized on this tracks.
"The Conversion" is based on a true story, I think of 1 or more of the
members of Kekal. It speaks of the how a person is indoctrinated since
young on how 'bad' and 'evil' Christianity is. and how by he is found by
Christ and come to know the light.
The highlight of this song is not the unblack vocals or brutality but
the female vocals.
'Satan never fulfilled his promise to me, he just inverts all the truth'
'Now i have a chance to live eternally'
'In Christ, my soul has been freed, has been freed'
Now on to side B of the cassette:
"Behind those Images" very heavy and brutal black metal for the people
around. Packs tons of melody which I really love.
'Reality' is a brutal stuff but I guess Kekal has leaning more towards
Death Metal in this particular track.
Heavy black vocals is used occasionally on this track...more are towards
the death growl.
'Escaping Eternal Suffering' mostly spoken male vocals. With the chorus sung with clean vocal, male that is.
'A Day The Hatred Died' truthful song about how corrupted this world is.
Melodious guitars are the focus of this track,
AND YES you can finally hear the bass clearly on this track!!!! A great
solo dominates the ending making me hoping that the song lasted longer.
The grand fanali "My Eternal Lover" It's all melody here...no blasted
beats no intense riffs,
just doomy atmospheric keyboards with clean guitars with no distortions,
only angelic, mesmerizing female vocals.
You can differentiate the 3 female vocalist on this tracks.
The female vocalist that I love is the one that sings "Your Precious
Blood washes away the sin"
Alot of blasted beats are in this album. Production is not top notch
some bad patches in the production,
the 'Eternal Lover' thus have distortion,
I would rather other tracks have the patches than this particular track.
But you will be pleasantly surprised by this Indonesian Black Metal band!
SCORE: 8/10
p/s-This album should get a 9 or 10/10 but the
production is pretty bad.