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.
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| 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]
