As usual, there I was minding my own business within the unknown realm of cyberspace, browsing and peeping through some local Malaysian heavy metal band’s MySpace page, trying to sniff what were they up to these days, when I came across with quite a few stunning new bands (well, at least for me) which I think deserves more exposure than Lars Ulrich’s snare sound in St Anger. I Shall first start with this band.
ZARQUUM
At first glance I thought this was a Black Metal band due to its Black Metal-isque name. Then I listened to the songs uploaded and end up asking myself, what kind of Black Metal is this? Zarquum turns out to be a Death Metal band hailing from the muddy banks of Kuala Lumpur. Well, don’t blame me for associating them with Black Metal since the name Zarquum itself means The Fruit of Hell in Arabic. Arabic name? The Fruit of Hell? Its got to be a black metal band. Haha. Well, that was just me being stereotypical.
All bullshits aside, Zarquum plays a very well played technical death metal in the veins of Arsis or Necrophagia maybe. Well, I am not that good in providing references anyway. Seriously, you should give this band a try. The guitars were crunchy enough for my ears, with double guitar riff attacks here and there and not to mention the shreds were like all over the place which reminds me of that French technical band, Gorod. The timing and the tempo changes of the two songs uploaded on their Myspace were unbelievable. It was like jumping on a trampoline on a bad acid trip.
I’ll tip my hat for the solos. Very well played, sirs. The vocals were the typical dual growls and high pitch screams. Nothing can be wrong there. I hear some synths too. Maybe it was added to add some gloominess into the song. Guess what? It worked. My only complaint? Vary the licks.
Give this band a chance to develop and I am very sure that they can be the Malaysian answer to Arsis. Even with the current state of the production quality of Malaysian studios, I can honestly say that these talented guys will give Gorod a run for their money. Try and give the songs a proper listen and tell me what you think. Oh ya, the band is preparing to release a split with another local melodic death metal heroes called Goda, another band worth mentioning band from Shah Alam, Selangor.
Zarquum is Lord Nafkhatul Faza (Vocal) Sir Farex (Guitar) JY (Guitar) and Ajan (Bass).
ZARQUUM MySpace
