Books - Steven Adler and Acrassicauda: no comments

According to Blabbermouth, Steven Adler had just begun promoting his tell-all autobiography called “My Appetite For Destruction: Sex and Drugs and Guns N Roses”. If you do not know who Steven Adler is then you are an idiot. Adler commended his popularity and super stardom status for his 5 years stint as the drummer for the world renowned heavy metal band the mighty Guns N Roses. When everything's not working for you, your projects were not that well received by the popular culture, always remember that you can at any time write a book about your previous band for a few chunks of cash, even though you’re just the drummer. Hell, drummers have stories to tell too.


Have you seen Heavy Metal in Baghdad in 2007? Never heard of it? Well, Heavy Metal in Baghdad was the name of a 2007 documentary film about this one heavy metal band who called themselves Acrassicauda from Baghdad the glorified capital city of Iraq. Basically, it was about these four Iraqi headbangers trying to endure playing heavy metal music and surviving the bombs and bullets from the second gulf war in Baghdad. It was a very fine and pleasurable documentary which I would recommend to everyone. I shall write a late review of that film some other time. I have just found out that they also had a book accompanying the film which was just recently released. The book was basically the complete autobiography of the band and their myriad of experience relocating from Baghdad to Turki to the good old Uncle Sam.

Hopefully these books will be available here in Malaysia.

Bands - Death Story: no comments

I am currently listening to Vociferation Eternity – Meadows Yearn. Fuck yeah.

DEATH STORY

Death Story is a death metal band hailing from the royal city of Kuala Kangsar, Perak, Malaysia. First of all I must say that I like the simple and memory friendly moniker. I like the visible logo too. It reminds me of Septic Death and I do not know why.

This five piece death ripping band plays stripped down straight forward death metal, the sort of death metal that I personally favored. Started off as a jam band in 2002 covering songs from bands in the likes of Hypocrisy and Therion, the band later evolved into this unit of death metal deadly assassins (so death metal) with one demo under their metal belts fittingly titled “Endless Stories of Death” which was on the rampage in 2008.

There were 5 songs available for preview on their Myspace page, one of which was a one minute acoustic intro I guess and I do believe that most of the songs were taken from their debut 2008 demo.

Death Story

I love the fact that the songs sounded organic and simple, maybe due to the fact it was only a demo. In terms of the songs, straight forward death metal meant that there were neither of those ultra technical riffs nor those ultra hyper blast beasts that would end up confusing the listeners and making emo boys vomit blood. All you got were these plentiful chunks of gritty and straight forward dark and deathly riffs through out the 3 minute period of each of the songs, headbangable mid tempo drums with a few blast beats here and there just to keep things interesting.

The bass was audible enough in the mix and it managed to hold the whole structure of their songs to be quite solid and heavy despite of the gritty guitar sound. I was quite annoyed with the vocals though, I honestly believe that the vocal effects were unnecessary and the vocalist should concentrate on producing traditional brutal death growls and extreme high pitch shrieks. For a demo I guess the production of this demo was quite ok although it could have been better.

Death Story: Harryat – vocals, Lord Raven – Guitar, Eibon – Guitar, Amygoth – Bass and Mme – Drums.

Death Story Myspace

Download: Intrusion of Dark Journey [1993] 3 comments

I am currently listening to Infectious Maggots – Unknown. Infectious Maggots is a local band that has been around for quite sometime, with three full lengths under their belt, playing industrial grindcore to the fullest. Fuck yeah. “Unknown”, their second album, was released in 1996 by Pony Canyon music.

In my previous post, I have determined that I will be putting some downloadable materials up in the bullet belt and this shall be the first entry under that newly created download tag. I think the best approach to initiate the preamble to the Malaysian Metal music is by letting the listeners indulge into the earliest form of Malaysian Metal compositions and the “Intrusion of Dark Journey” compilation is the best way to kick starts the engine.

“Intrusion of Dark Journey” was one of the earliest extreme metal compilations ever to be recorded and I suggest that every metal heads in Malaysia should consider getting this compilation tape as an essential document to the history of Malaysian extreme metal. But please be informed that you do need to excavate unfathomable archeological sites to find this one since it is extremely difficult to find the tape nowadays.

For the Malaysian headbangers, go and look for the last available copies in Campbell Complex, Kuala Lumpur. I found my copy there and that was like 10 years ago. If you are interested to get yourself in the know of the evolution of Malaysian Metal from the earliest of form then this recording, in my honest opinion, would be a good place to start.

This compilation was produced by the historical Dark Journey Records, to my best of limited knowledge, one of the earliest independent record labels ever to emerge from Malaysia championing extreme metal, in 1993. There are 8 Death metal and Black Metal bands featured in this recording. The bands were Demisor, Profane Creation, Incubated Worms, Nebiras, Bazzah, Aradia, Misanthrope and Kitanai-Chi.

Correct me if I am in the wrong about these facts but if I am not mistaken Demisor was and very much still is a Singaporean godz of grind and as far as I know Profane Creation, Incubated Worms and Kitanai-Chi have all been dissolved. Profane Creation contributed 2 songs for another local compilation called "Ipoh Metal Militant Supremacist" in 1998. Kitanai Chi went on to release a four song EP in 1995 titled "The Mystery of the Dark War Come true" under the moniker Mystery.

I do not know the status of Nebiras since their last offering, “The Great Rites” in 1998 but you can still reach the band through their Myspace page, Misanthrope changed their moniker to Ravenlord and released an album titled “Martyr, Hail” in 2000, the legendary Bazzah is still active and their latest offering was in 2006 titled “Possessed by Evil” and Aradia had just been recently reformed and finally with a full length album under their bulletbelts titled “Draconis Eulogy”.

Bazzah: Myspace | EncMetallum
Aradia: Myspace | EncMetallum
Nebiras: Myspace | EncMetallum
Profane Creation: EncMetallum
Ravenlord: EncMetallum
Mystery: EncMetallum

Name: Intrusion of Dark Journey Compilation
Label: Dark Journey Records
Size: 39.6mb
Year: 1993
Bands: Demisor, Profance Creation, Incubated Worms, Aradia, Bazzah, Misanthrope, Nebiras & Kitanai-Chi.

DOWNLOAD