Interview: Punah Ranah. no comments

PunahRanah is a grinding death metal band from Kuala Lumpur. I used to feature them here in the Bullet Belt back in 2010, which you can read here. I managed to get hold of Azan, to answer a few questions about the band, the music and the future plans of the band. They will be releasing their album in the nearest future, so you better be prepared for some menacing meat grinding body decapitating metal! Take it away, me!

[TBB] Greetings bro. Kindly introduce yourself to the readers.

[Azan] Hello, hola and greetings to all! I'm Azan, from behalf of PunahRanah.

[TBB] Punah Ranah was formed back in 2008. Can you please give a brief run through on the history of the band and why that name?

[Azan] PunahRanah was actually formed back in 2006 [my bad - Ed]. We participated in a lot of jamm sessions with other bands before we played the actual and the first gig in Gegey Fest, Ayer Keroh in 2009. The response from the crowd is quite awesome. they thought that we are playing in a funny grindcore band, due to the name of our band.haha. they were wrong when they heard our song started.

[TBB]Who is in the band right now? Any line up changes since the first demo?

[Azan] The line up are Bess-bass/vocals, Ashie - drums, and me, guitar and vocals. We used to have Epool as a vocal but he quits in January 2011 due to some other problems. We've remained a three piece band until now.

[TBB] First Chapter of Killing Process was released back in 2010. What have you guys been doing since then and how was the response from the crowd at gigs and shows?

[Azan] We are now preparing for the upcoming release. Probably around 10 songs. The response for the first EP was great. We sold more than 350 copies including trades with other bands [that is indeed awesome - ED]. RMPP or "Rosmah Mansur Perempuan Puaka" is a must to be played in any gig or show as requested by the crowd. Haha!

[TBB] The demo itself, how satisfied are you with the demo? Can you please detail us a bit about the demo and the reception of the local metalheads of the demo?

[Azan] We are quite satisfied with the songs in the demo that were recorded live, although the sound engineer at that time messed our songs up pretty bad, by reformatting his PC and we have to record back 4 songs because he accidentally deleted it. It should have been released in mid 2009. Thankfully after the release of the demo, we got a lot of gig/shows invitations from the organizers. We are not satisfied with the quality of the sound though.

Punah Ranah

[TBB] Do you consider PunahRanah a pure grindcore band or a death metal band? Or maybe some sort of hybrid between the two. What I like about your songs from the demo was that it got the intensity and political edge of a punk band and the sheer chugging heaviness and groove of a death metal band.

[Azan] PunahRanah is actually a mixture/combination between death metal and grindcore, or we would rather say DeathGrind. There's a lot of Deathgrind bands that are out there now such as Misery Index, Cephalic Carnage (although they stated that they played "hydro-Grind) Cattle Decapitation and etc etc..

[TBB] Being in a metal band, you cannot run from putting quality of your music before everything else. How important is quality to you since political bands usually tend to give more emphasis on their lyrics than the music.

[Azan] Both are important. Quality means everything to us. That is why we will record in a proper way and have a good production for our upcoming material that we are working on it now. 

[TBB] What do you think about the local grindcore scene in Malaysia today? Do you have any local grindcore heroes that influences your music?

[Azan] I think it is growing bigger and stronger. Since there are grind bands started touring the Europe and the US region. Band that inspired us to play Grindcore such as Negation, Torture Incident, etc. Glad that Negation have made a comeback.

[TBB] Any upcoming releases? Can we expect new songs from Punah Ranah this year? How can the readers or organizers get in touch with the band?

[Azan] We've just uploaded a new song in our band page and in Youtube, title "Dismantling of the Stupidity" earlier this year. We hope that we can release it by this year.

[TBB] Any last words for the readers?

[Azan] We would like to thank hafeez for the interview. we hope that our scene is stronger and unite despite of our differences in ideology or beliefs. Wait for our upcoming album soon! It's gonna be awesome!

[To those who wanted to know more about the band or wanted to know more on how to get hold of their releases, do not hesitate to communicated with them as soon because they will not hesitate to write a reply as soon. I got the answers to these questions in one day. Thumbs up to that. If you like heavy chungging cruchy Deathgrind, you need to experience PunahRanah. In Grind We Trust, motherfuckers! - ED]

Punah Ranah | Facebook

Review: Tarantulah no comments

TARANTULAH - Kedamaian Jalan Hitam

1. Tarantulah is a four piece band playing thrash metal/grindcore hailing from Kuala Lumpur. The band was formed in 2007, but it was only 2012 that the band becan to actively releasing demos/promos and being featured in compilations. The band emailed me their promo for review and it took me quite sometime before I could find the time to really sit down and listen to their 4 track promo.

Tarantulah Battling Legion

2. The demo was raw but you still can listen to the songs. Musically, I found them more of a punkish grindcore band rather than a thrash band. Think Napalm Death scum era grindcore. Dirty and extremely raw. The songs were simple and straight to your face.  Faithful to the typical grindcore song structure, three of the four songs were all under three minutes, not giving you any room to breath.

 

3. The instrumentation were a bit muddy and bassy, but what do you really expect from a live promo? It would be more enjoyable if it were a bit cleaner though. If you like punkish grindcore, you should definitely check this band out.

TARANTULAH | Facebook

TARANTULAH | Blogspot

Videos: Black Metal Satanica. no comments

Black Metal Satanica | 80 Minutes | Doom Films Production | 2008

1. Black Metal Satanica is a documentary about, well, satanic Black Metal. The focus point is Scandinavian Black Metal, mainly Swedish. It starts with a few musicians giving a brief run through on Norse mythology, the history of the vikings and their uncompromising attitude toward Christianity, which was allegedly the rooting puzzle in answering the question why Black Metal was and still are so popular in Scandinavia.

2. To be honest, its a little bit cheesy for my liking. Everything in the documentary are nothing new to me. Their hatred towards Christianity, Norse mythology, Satanism, you know, the whole nine yards. I was expecting something different or at least something new.

3. The production was a bit gloomy and dark. Certain individuals giving interviews in the dark and all, and I was like, come on. Enough with that dark imagery and go straight to the music. Nobody gives a shit about your "darkness". 

4. Some of the interviewees, like Bjorn Almar, gave decent interviews and some were meh. I believe this was due to the fact that some of the individuals had to answer questions in english, it was a bit difficult to really make out what they were actually saying. 

5. Being a Swedish produced documentary, the documentary gave emphasis on the influence of Swedish black metal personalities, for example, highlighting Dead and the importance of his recruitment into Mayhem as being the focal point of the wave turning of Black Metal. I would rather have the documentary put more emphasis on Quarthon and Bathory instead, if they really wanted to highlight influential Swedish figures.

6. The documentary also touched on the evil acts that have been associated with Black Metal in the instance of grave desecration, church burnings and what not. And I was like, come on. And when you thought it would not get more funnier, you will also have a Blair Witch Project like segment where the crew was interviewing this one mysterious figure (so mysterious that they had to distort his voice) about grave desecration and all that pure evil stuff, and then the lights went out, they heard a bang and the mysterious person just vanished into thin air. The crew then went into some jungle to look for him. What the fuck? The comedy just wrote itself.  

7. The narrators. Oh man, do not get me started with the bloody narrators. They were trying too hard to sound evil and creepy and it ended out being funny as hell. The narratives were poorly written and was clearly written to spook everybody. And Euronymous? The grandfather of Black Metal? Really? It was called the second wave of black metal for a reason, asshole. How can he be a grandfather, if he was not from the first wave of Black Metal? If it were all up to me, that title would go to Quarthon. And Troll metal? What the fuck is a Troll Metal?

8. Well, this is just a poor poor production. But you can try and watch this video for the Blair Witch part. Hilarious. Sometime, I often wondered why nobody even tried to elaborate the character of its music instead of just focusing on the controversies and image. Why black metal sounded the way in it sounded. Why that particular chords or that particular progression. Anybody up to the challenge?