Top 5 Most Influential Malaysian Metal Album of All Time : CROMOK - Forever In Time. 5 comments

Behold! Number 1 on the list of top 5 most influential Malaysian metal album of all time.

CROMOK - Forever In Time

Undeniably, this is, at least for us here at TheBulletBeltBlog, the numero uno most influential heavy metal record from Malaysia, Cromok's second album Forever In Time. Whether you like the band or not, it is an undeniable and difficult to dispute fact that without this album, which was released by EMI back in 1993, a lot of people would remain stuck with radio oriented hard rock for the rest of their lives, if not eventually turning into some disc hangin' jumpsuit wearin' YoYo sayin' rap aficionado.

Everybody knew the name and almost everybody knew the songs from this album, metalhead or no metalhead, especially the infamous "Another You" and "I Dont Belong Here". Cromok's brand of asiatic + oriental Thrash Metal comprises of aggressive and extremely heavy but yet very soothing asiatic melodic riffs, long and emotional guitar solos (harmonic most of the time) from Karl, semi growl vocals (whispery at times) by Sam and excruciatingly fast drum beats with crazy double paddle play through out each of their songs courtesy of Miji. The clear and professional production helps too.

Thus there you go, our top five all time most influential heavy metal records from Malaysia.    

Top 5 Most Influential Malaysian Metal Album of All Time : SIL KHANNAZ - Gerbang Kayangan 2 comments

TheBulletBelts takes a look at 5 most important and highly influential metal albums from Malaysia. Here is number 2. 
   

SIL KHANNAZ - Gerbang Kayangan

They started as a violently heavy straight to your face death metal band back in the early demo and first abum days but this album departed altogether from their previous genre and head towards a new realm of progressive heavy metal with growling vocals. What made this album stood out was the fact that it was their first album with malay lyrics in the full. The lyrics themselves, mainly revolved around the history of Merong Mahawangsa, the history of Kedah (a northern state of Malaysia, rich with history) and a bit on the epic tales from Mahabharata, were creative inclusion of ancient malay royal language of Sanskrit and modern malay. This album introduced Sil Khannaz to a new and younger audience and at the same time upsetting their original fans which were left dazed for not being able to make out the reason behind the controversial departure of their favorite death metal band. But everybody eventually accepted this album as a classic Eastern Metal album nonetheless.

Top 5 Most Influential Malaysian Metal Album of All Time : LANGSUYR - Occultus Mysticism / Eastern Cruelty. 3 comments

 TheBulletBelts takes a look at 5 most important and highly influential metal albums from Malaysia. Here is number 3.

Langsuir - Occultus Mysticism

LANGSUIR - Occultus Mysticism/Eastern Cruelty.

The pioneer of Malay influenced metal. What made this blackened death metal (in my honest opinion, come on, you guys even used corpse paints once) band got listed in this top 5 most influential metal records of all time according to TheBulletBelt was their originality. Amalgamating malay folk lores and shamanism in their lyrics, the potential of which was never really explored thoroughly at that point of time or since.

Langsuir - The Eastern Cruelty

When most Malaysian metalheads at that time were too occupied bashing false religion and dragons, these guys came out and talked about Pawangs (Malay withdoctor/shaman), Malay ghosts and local folklores and managed to kick all the goat worshippers in the nuts. Armed with a very distinctive dual lead guitar riffs arrangement intertwining harmonically courtesy of 2 riffmasters, Azmaniac and Bentara, and a very unique vocal delivery by Azlanthor, Occultus Mysticism stood out as one of the best professionally recorded demo at that time and the Eastern Cruelty EP without any shadow of a doubt paved the way for a new genre all together, which came out to be known today as Eastern Metal.

Top 5 Most Influential Malaysian Metal Album of All Time : SUFFERCATION - Days of Darkness. 1 comments

 TheBulletBelts takes a look at 5 most important and highly influential metal albums from Malaysia. Here is number 4.

SUFFERCATION - Days of Darkness.

This band definitely earned their place as one of the most influential band in Malaysia and their debut album, being the first death metal band to record a proper album back in the days, is without a doubt opened lots of eyes. They blew a lot of minds with this album. Heavy, aggressive and straigtforward old school (not at that time of course) death fucking metal. Everybody was like "wow you can actually record this type of music here". Everything was scary with this album. The cover depicted coffin carrying corpse and a bloodied terrifying looking logo. Nothing more death metal than that my friends. A lot of metal maniac nowadays admitted that they were actually unable to handle the heaviness of this album. It was too fucking heavy then and it remains one of heaviest metal record of all time.

Top 5 Most Influential Malaysian Metal Album of All Time : HERRIOT - Celestial Obelisk 2 comments

Besides being influenced, most of the time, musically and rarely, attitude wise by international heavy metal bands from all around the world, there were a few heavy metal records of diverse genre, which in my book, that can be considered as highly influential towards the development of the Malaysian heavy metal scene in general. It was these heavy metal masterpieces that, in my opinion, helped develop and mold the Malaysian heavy metal scene to be what it is today. Opinion may vary, but this is my list of top 5 most influential Malaysian heavy metal record. We start with number 5:

HERRIOT - Celestial Obelisk

Try and ask any Malaysian Metalcore bands nowadays what their influenced are, amongst all that crappy American new wave of heavy metal bands in the likes of Lamb of God, Avenged Sevenfold and what not, they will definitely mention Herriot, a local melodic death metal hero that may had been born in a wrong country, as one of their main influence. Celestial Obelisk EP was one of the most important heavy metal album in Malaysia, introducing Gothenberg melodic death metal to the local audience. As any In Flames, Dark Tranquility or Soilwork earlier albums, this 4 song EP was filled with dual guitar harmonies and innocent crunchy riffs scattered all over the place, while the vocals delivers a passionate and angry wrathful screaming growls. A hell of a release.

Bands: Goda / Zarquum Split Tape. 1 comments

Click for a larger view.

1- I used to review and promote Zarquum here in this blog. And when was that? Last year. You can go and read the entry HERE. Well, after one year long over fucking due, they have finally able to release the split that I was talking about in my previous post about them. 

2- For your information, Zarquum (Technical Death Metal) and GODA (melodic death metal) consists mainly the same key individuals. Most probably wanting to try something new and different with each band, i guess. But it's worth the try man. I have always been impressed with Zarquum anyway.

3- What ever it is, the split release is called The Cryptic Aesthetic and it contains 6 songs, 3 from each bands respectively. If you are interested (and you should), do not hesitate to drop a bomb at farbeyondz@gmail.com or SMS to 016-8563002 to find out how to obtain a copy of the split.

Books: Hello Me Meet The Real Me: Mustaine - A Life in Metal. 3 comments

Hello Me Meet The Real Me: Mustaine - A Life in Metal by Dave Mustaine and Joe Layden.

Title: Hello Me Meet The Real Me: Mustaine - A Life in Metal
Authors: Dave Mustaine & Joe Layden.
Publisher: Harper Collins Publishing.
Additional Information: Hardcover, 346 Pages, RM 96.90, Kinokuniya Bookstore Kuala Lumpur.

1- I was super excited when I first heard that Mustaine will be writing and releasing his memoir and when it was released, I waited patiently for the book to hit the local shelves. When it did, I went to my favorite bookstore to purchase a copy of the book just to find out that it was sold out. Fuck! I guess Malaysians love their Megadeth. I got my copy only a few weeks later. It was never too late to enjoy a good dose of Dave Mustaine's arrogance in my book.

2- Let us move on to the contents of the book. It was written from a first person point of view thus you will have Mustaine narrating everything from top to bottom. The contents were divided into 17 chapters with the first two dealt with his background, his family and his early interest in music and guitar. 3 chapters were dedicated to his life when he was in Metallica and eventually ended up until he was booted out from the band. The rest of the book was about his revenge seeking in the form of Megadeth, rotating band members and his drug addiction.

3- Reading the book (and a couple more books on the history of hard rock and heavy metal) and from being an avid fan for so long, I just could not help but summarize that with out Mustaine, thrash metal would not be as it is today. Everybody recognize that the genre was pioneered by Metallica and of course there were more than a dozen guitar virtuosos that came after him in the likes of Scott Ian of Anthrax and Kerry King of Slayer, but it was Mustaine's furious guitar playing in No Life Till Leather that molded the basic template for thrash riffs in the 80's.

4- This is definitely a must.

Rants: Books On Malay Heavy Metal? 4 comments

1- How many books you think we have out there which deals with the Malaysian heavy bands or scene in general? None. Zilch. Nada. Why? Because Malaysians lack the interest to put things on record. "On record" here refers to readable materials i.e. books. Which is kinda pathetic and sad at the same time.

2- There are of course a few pages dedicated to Malaysian heavy metal in some magazines here and there but come on. 30 years of heavy metal in a couple of glossy pages, which most of the time, were not even written by heavy metal enthusiasts, is not enough. Mr. Abdul Aziz Ittar, you sir, need to do something about this.

3- Man, the history of Malaysian heavy metal is indeed a colorful and dramatic one and i bet that it would easily fit at least in a few hundred pages worth of readable materials. Why we Malaysians does not find it necessary to record it all in a proper book remains a mystery to me. Maybe due to the lack of interest to read.

4- If legendary Malaysian bands in the likes of Search, Wings and Cromok or even Sil Khannaz were formed in the United States, I bet there would be at least 4 or 5 books detailing the history of the band. Metallica alone have at least 4. The Beatles got hundreds of them. I believe that it will definitely sell at least couple of thousand copies if not more.

5- I found out just recently that Sweet Charity, a (considered) local hard rock band (credited as the first rock band in Malaysia/Singapore) released an autobiography about themselves. I think it is a good start. Even when Sil Khannaz (local Death Metal/Progressive Death Metal band) chose to release a rockumentary detailing their colorful history, I was in awe and made it a mission to go and buy the CD. And I did just that.

6- Dont you think its time we start recording some history of our own and bring the scene to a whole new level? 

Download: Sepultura - Kairos [2011] no comments

1- Penulis masih lagi belum sembuh daripada demam akibat daripada keterkejutan melampau yang dialami gara gara keepic failan album baru Morbid Angel, Illud Divinum Insanus. Ternyata sangat mengecewakan malah berkemungkinan boleh sahaja diletakkan didalam kumpulan album album metal yang paling mengecewakan untuk tahun 2011 sebaris dengan album-album seperti... maaf tiada contoh yang boleh diberikan kerana tidak ada album album lain yang mengecewakan seperti kecewanya penulis dengan album baru Morbid Angel ini.

2- Lagenda thrash metal Brazil, Sepultura sudahpun menerbitkan album terbaru mereka yang diberi judul Kairos. Setakat 2 buah lagu yang sudah boleh didengar melalui youtube, lagu Kairos dan Just One Fix hasil saduran daripada kumpulan Industrial, Ministry, penulis boleh menyimpulkan bahawa album ini sedikit old school sepertimana lagu-lagu mereka dari era Roots. yang pasti, ianya menampilkan bunyi gitar yang berat dan permainan drum yang groovy.

3- Jika anda menginginkan Sepultura kembali dengan lagu-lagu seperti Beneath The Remains, penulis mencadangkan agar anda mendengar sahaja album baru Cavalera Conspiracy. Namun anda boleh memberi peluang pada album baru Sepultura ini untuk tenggelam kedalam telinga anda terlebih dahulu sebelum menolaknya mentah-mentah. Penulis juga tertarik dengan lukisan muka depan album ini yang sangat old school lantas menjadikan ianya agak cool dan cvlt.

4- Muat turun album baru Sepultura DISINI.

Rants: Rock 2 & Morbid Angel. 2 comments

1- As I have been informed, the good people who previously brought you the movie, Rock (a very awesome movie about a fictionalized 80's rock group called Rimba Bara starring Khir Rahman and Que Haidar) will be filming Rock 2 revolving around the history of a a non fictionalized local rock group called Search. I cant fucking wait.

2- Morbid Angel, he pioneer of what is known now as the Florida Death Metal sound, has  recently unleashed their latest album, Illud Divinum Insanus and it sucked big time. SUCKED. BIG TIME. And this is Morbid Angel that we are talking about. Is this the same band that released Altars of Madness and Covenant back in the late 80s and early 90's? What the fuck? Azagthoth tried to defend the album by saying that Morbid Angel was infact tried to venture into something new with Illud Divinum Insanus. Something new my malay ass. There is nothing new with adding a few loops of 8 repetitive bars of a song and drum machines. Marilyn Manson, motherfuckers, Marilyn fucking Manson. Do not buy Illud Divinum Insanus. Unless you are a fan of Earth Wind & Fire.

3- Rest in peace Morbid Angel.

Bands: Deep - Buried Beneath and Forgotten. no comments

Coming Soon.

Band: Punah Ranah - Chapter of Killing Process. no comments

1- And so I have been informed that KL's grind fuckers, Punah Ranah had already released something, maybe an EP or an album or something, titled Chapter of Killing Process. I have already wrote some sort of a review about them in this blog somewhere. You can go and read about Punah Ranah HERE. Punah Ranah plays Grindcore.

2- Unfortunately, not much information that I can share with you guys here since theres not much info about the release on the net anyway. I noticed that a member of the band had recently dropped by so I am hoping that he will at least shed some light of information about the release for thebulletbelt. Maybe the guys from Punah Ranah can consider submitting the release to GrindandPunishment.Blogspot for a hefty sack of exposure.

3- Anyway, if you are interested to find out more about the band, you can always visit their MySpace page which I have already included in my previous post or go to their Facebook page HERE.