Reviews - DAARCHLEA - Suns [2014] 3 comments

Posted at 12:04 PM in

DAARCHLEA - Suns (2014)

As most of you might know by now, I rarely update my blog nowadays. I have succumbed to the hectic schedule of life and could no longer pay attention to this blog. The last past was way back in 2013 for god sake. 

Having said that, the other day, I managed to get my hands on Daarchlea's full lenght debut titled Suns and holy crap, was I in for a bloody surprise. First of all, I have to make it clear that I have an uncontrollable intolerance for metalcore, deathcore and all that modern metal crap. Nothings wrong with the music, its just not my cup of tea. When I was active promoting Malaysian Metal a couple of years back, I never gave those local bands that, unfortunately, fell under the metalcore banner, anytime of day, because, you know, why should I? And back then, to my ears, Daarchela fell under that banner. I ignored them. I hated their old kelawar/butterfly from afar logo too. Hahaha

A couple of moons recently, a metal blogger friend of mine asked me to go and check the band out. I hesitated because, you know, Daarchlea was a typical deathcore band so why should I. Haha. A few weeks later, I stumbled with the bands new ambigram logo. I sensed something different in the air. Just for the sake of it, I went and liked their facebook page and cought wind that the band was writing and recording Suns, their full lenght debut. They put up a teaser and guess what, it sounded heavy, scary and dark. The type of sound that can give you nightmares. So, yeah, I kinda anticipated the album, just to see how it would turn out at the end.

Theyve finally released the album a couple of weeks ago and I finally managed to get my hand of them yesterday. Holy fucking crap, the album is brilliant. I cannot stop shaking my head while blasting the album full blast on my way to work. This is just brilliant. Everything, from the song writing to the music production were top notch. I said to myself, I gotta update my blog and talk about this album. This needs to go huge. Fucking huge.

Daarchlea is a blackened deathcore band hailing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Suns, their highly anticipated (and rightfully so) debut album, contains 10 songs. There are Dusk/Midian era Cradle of Flth evilness in there, some Dimmu Borgirs, Deathcult Armageddon epic clean singing in there (to me, the whole album sounded like a 30 minute extension of Progenies, with less orchestra) and in some songs, you will find the presence of Norwegian black metal style riffs were thrown in as well. 

Everything is top notch, especially the sound. The guitars were heavy, crunchy and with the right amount of warmth. The drums (which im always particular of) was brilliantly mixed, the snare sound was magnificent (woody, the way I like it) while the toms and bassdrums were perfectly mixed. Decent solos here and there and lastly the star of them all, the keyboards. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. On top of it all, the vocals. You got the typical low growls and high pith shrieks and the clean singing. The vocals can sing. The harmonies were pitch perfect.

I have to applaud the music arrangement, dude. Kudos to the band for crafting the songs beautifully. Trust me, this will end up being an instant classic. This is a sublime album. If I were to define this album with only one word, that word would be SINISTER. Fucking SINISTER. Get this album, support the band, tell everybody about them. This is a local product thats worth your support. The band needs to push this album for international circulation, like big time. Daarchlea, bloody hell.

Contact the band via their facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/daarchleaofficial.

Review: Malapetaka - 2013 Demo. no comments

Posted at 12:17 PM in

KL Death Thrashers, Malapetaka. (credit to owner of photo)
 
1. Malapetaka is a four piece death thrash band hailing from Kuala Lumpur and this is a review for their much anticipated 2013 death thrashing demo. I have written about them previously and there was also a cool interview with their frontman Ah Boon and Guitarist Ashok, somewhere in this blog. Check that interview out to find out more about this young talented band.

2. I really love this band and shall give them as much support as I could but I am not going to hold back any punches when it comes to reviews. Having said that, lets move on to the demo tracks. The demo contains 5 decent death thrashing songs including an intro. The guitars were a bit light weight for my liking but I dont really mind that as long as I can listen to their notes. The riffs were extravagant and plentiful. Kudos for that. The solos are original (heavy translation of Malaysian/Indonesian ethnic sound through a distortion) and executed with perfection. Its kind of weird but tolerable.

3. The bass sound were too low in the mix and its barely audible. That made metal their sound a bit dry. If the bass was audible, I believe it can add more dimensions to their songs since Ash's works on the riffs have already been good, with an audible bass, good can be elevated to bad ass.

4. Now, the drums. Man, where should I start with the drums. Being a drum enthusiast myself, the first thing that can affect my attitude towards any metal albums, would always be the drum mix. As much as I love the band, I can not bear to tolerate the drum mix in this demo. The sound was extremely dry, lack of reverb with a plenty amount of unnecessary feeback on the snares. It does not help that it was also quite high in the mix.

5. Stroke wise, I believe it can be better, because, to my puny little ears, the drum department lacked the groove and swing, two ingredients that are required to keep any good songs intact. The drum fills were extremely awkward and timing were a bit off here and there. Fills were meant to be bridges connecting different parts of a song, so when the fills were off beat, it may affect the whole song, the riffs and the vocals.

6. But I was also made to understand that drummer, Mr. Naji was recruited a couple months before the band entered the studio to record this demo. Give him more time to perfect his skills and in no time I honestly believe that he can be an incredible asset to the band. There were a few spots here and there where he showed real skills holding down the intense beats. More power to you, Mr. Naji and maybe more double paddle next time? Haha.

7. The vocals? Boon did a good job managing the vocals.It was high in the mix. But my only problem with the vocals were the off beat/tempo phrasing in some part of their songs. Properly timing and phrasing your words/vocals in perfect sequence with the tempo/beat is very very important because the failure to do so will affect the groove of a song. I believe the use of metronome would do the trick next time fellas.  But being the vocalist, you got no other choice but to develop your own sense of tempo/groove. Having your own sense of tempo will also help you when ever you got a broken monitor for your live shows. I believe that can be done with more time and experience.

8. What ever it is, the band is still worth supporting. They are hardworking and friendly. I hope to see them more on the live stages, so organizers? Wutcha waitin for?

Rants: Updates. 1 comments

Posted at 12:54 PM in

Hello, Malaysian metalheads. How are you these days? How was Metallica? How was the opening band? Did you manage to record their performance and upload it on youtube? Haha. Fun and jokes aside, I would like to apoligize for the lack of updates these days. Life has been quite hectic these days.

But fear not, I will be writing some reviews later on since I got my hands on a number of awesome local releases that I feel I need to promote and expose. Some of them were sent by the band and some of them, I bought. So expect machine guns of reviews for the next couple of posts.

I am also in the midst of interviewing a couple of bands that everybody should listen to. Wait for that one as well. In the mean time, for the local metalheads, keep your head abreast with news and updates on the local metal scene via these dedicated blogs listed below:

www.ekstrim.blogspot.com
www.dissectingtheeuphony.blogspot.com

I will do a round up for more news, later. Probably I will angkut the news from these blogs anyway. LOL. So enjoy you weekdays and see you just in a little bit. All hail the Malaysian Metal scene. Kita metal terus (move forward and metal)!

Worshippers.