Videos - Metal : A headbanger’s Journey: 1 comments

Metal : A headbanger’s Journey, Banger Productions, 2005.

I know it is kind of late to write down a review about this incredible documentary. I watched this one last year and that is kind of late too taking into account that the documentary was released way back in 2005. Where the hell was I in 2005? What ever it is, I have to say that this is the documentary that everyone should spend some time watching to really understand what heavy metal is really all about. Either for those who long to appreciate and value the history and origin of this wonderful music we call heavy metal, or for those who, out of innocent curiosity, wanted to read through real reason why it had such an immense or superlative cultural impact on its devoted listeners, this is the documentary that will explain and answer some of your questions.

The video follows Sam Dunn, a devoted metal listener and a Canadian anthropologist turn film director, on a journey to all the significant places through out the globe, England and Norway for instance, both remain closely significant to the birth of New Wave of British Heavy Metal and the second wave of the Satanic Black Metal respectively, while dictating the origins of the music, the musicians and its cultural impact on youths to the viewers.

The video was neatly divided into several parts and primary contents where Dunn would help and introduce to the viewers to the inside world of heavy metal, step by step. I enjoyed the segments and it appears to me that the video was produced as a very much viewer friendly documentary by manipulating the easiest but the most effective and best ways, the mechanism to reach for the curious cats out there who really wanted to understand heavy metal, without just vomiting the superiority of the music all at one go. Dunn and his team really do want to edify and educate rather than doing a one off shot documentary with crappy contents and footage quality. It was this quality and dedication that impressed Iron Maiden, whose singer Bruce Dickinson also appeared in the documentary, so much that they invited Dunn and his crew to film the mighty Maiden on tour. The film was later produced and released as Iron Maiden: Flight 666.

There was also this chart on the evolution of Heavy Metal that really made me fascinated. The chart explained how heavy metal evolved from Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple to Dio, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest to Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth to Mayhem, Darkthrone and Immortal so on so forth. Dunn and his team also released another documentary called Global Metal in 2007 as a follow up. I shall write a late review on that video too. This is recommended to all you Malaysian Heavy Metal enthusiasts out there.

While I was writing this entry, i listened to the newest album by a Greece melancholic and depressive Black Metal band called Sad, entitled Enlightened by Darkness. Really sets the mood. Haha.

Covers - Langsuyr's The Eastern Cruelty: 3 comments

Hey, I am definitely getting the hang of doing this cover review series. Thank you MetalMark for this awesome inspiration. When I first had the idea to do this cover reviews series, there were a few album covers that flew straight into my head and made its way straight into my best album covers top ten list and this was one of them. Langsuyr’s The Eastern Cruelty EP cover which was released by Nebiula Production in 1996.

I was still a very naïve and young aspired metal head back when I first discovered this album in its cassette format on a shelve in a record store somewhere, and I have made it a mission to go and get this album. Why? Because I was attracted to the killer and evil cover artwork. Langsuyr is a Black Death metal band hailing from Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia and one of the earlier bands whose music prototyped a whole new genre, the Eastern Metal. Eastern Metal basically was heavy metal, usually black metal with the incorporation of Malay occult and mystical theme usually lyrically and rarely image. It may sound a bit trendy today to have occult and mystical Malay poems as lyrics, but back then it was a very unique and original phenomenon. The name Langsuyr or langsuir was taken from the name of the deadliest banshee, the deadliest version of the numerous versions of Malay female vampires available in the Malay folklore.

If my memory serves me correctly, the artwork was drawn by the band’s drummer at that time and the logo was designed by the guitarist. I have to prefer the logo on this release compared to their original logo on their first demo or any of their later releases. The Eastern Cruelty logo depicted the name of the band covered in flames. I loved the details and for me it has a very evil, wicked and eastern black magical atmosphere.

Let us examine the cover. The cover consists of the image of a seven headed dragon most probably as a reverence to one of their songs included in the EP entitled The Seven Headed Dragon of Pelangi. Pelangi is a Malay word for the rainbow. In the middle of the chaotic swerves and swirls of the dragon’s heads, sits a menacing looking female figure with a sinister grin which I believe to be a Malay female shaman. This was due to her being drawn holding an incense tray with her left hand in a position to cast a spell. It could have been the lady langsuir herself. Notice the long, sharp and disturbing fingernails?

I adored every bit of details available in this artwork. It seems that the dragon drawing and the female figure drawing were actually two pieces of artwork pasted together. Note the white line outlining the female figure? Although another explanation would explicate that the method of outlining a figure in an artwork is actually normal in order to highlight a particular character. Fair enough. Although I am no expert in art and the quality of an artwork, I would really like to believe that the whole The Eastern Cruelty artwork was drawn using colored pencils. The precision is excruciatingly well decorated. This cover will always be one of the best decorated album cover in my view.

Get in touch with Langsuyr:
www.myspace.com/langsuyrband

Covers - Claw's Summoning The Darkness: no comments

One of my favorite blog is MetalMark. I enjoyed reading his thoughts and personal views on all things metal. There is this one column in his blog that I enjoyed reading called Clash of the Album Covers, where MetalMark would post two or more album covers and later let his readers choose and decide their preference. It was fun reading the hilarious and side-splitting comments from his readers and MetalMark would occasionally give his own personal views and favorites. I decided to put out something similar but it would not be another Clash of the Album Covers rip off. It would be much more comparable to what MetalMark and his friends were doing in A Whole Lotta Album Covers, but since The Bullet Belt will only be concentrating on Malaysian Heavy Metal scene, it is obvious that I will only write about Malaysian Metal album covers. This will be fun I hope.

I shall start with Claw’s Summoning the Darkness 2009 demo cover. Claw is a promising grim and raw black metal band from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In Malaysia, this grim and raw type black metal sound is popularly known and labeled as Black Metal Hutan. Hutan is a malay word for forest. The sound was so grim, raw and primitive it must have been recorded primitively in some deep jungle some where, thus the term Forest Black Metal. Hey, that might just have been a new unique genre there if the bands could just throw in some unique trademarks. Well, as for the band, they have managed to release two well received demos and a four way split tape in 2008 since their inception into blasphemy in 2004. Summoning the Darkness was their most recent demo released through the dedicated Morbid Invasion Records. Some native tribesman out there in the deepest jungle, who must have engineered the demo, must have been really proud.

I personally loved the new Claw logo. I personally think that it caught the grimness of the band. It’s definitely eviler and desecrating compared to the old 2007 logo. The old logo reminded me of a logo used by a death metal band from South America, unfortunately I forgot the name of the band. The fact that the logo was nicely designed in symmetry and was colored white rather than the typical black, made it more captivating, if I may say so. Let us examine the picture on the cover. The cover depicted a grayscale photo of a dusky, foggy and yet very icy mountain top complete with its dry and rather pale forestry gloominess. The fact that the mountain was kind of covered with snow was a bit a turning off switch for me since there are no icy mountains in Malaysia. Or is it me being bad in geography? This is not Norway mates. Again, this was also, to my eyes, a perfect illustration and representation of the band’s style of music. The cover was indeed very atmospheric. The perfect mishmash of dark, cold and gloomy atmosphere made it to be as one of the most perfect album cover in 2009, well at least for me if we were to exclude the snow.

Get in touch with Claw: http://claw-kvlt.blogspot.com/