Review Summary: Their finest album (yet) since 2008. Easy to enjoy, but difficult to grasp.
I've had the digital promo of
Kekal's "Envisaged" for quite some time now, received it around May 2022, almost two months before the album's official release date. As a fan of the band I got excited upon receiving this promo album in advance, but not until I realized I "had" to review it just like their previous 2 albums. Writing a review for this album wasn't an easy task because I wanted to make sure I am seriously listening to this album and understand what I'm listening to before start typing the review. Otherwise I would be just blabbering a mouthful of empty utterances, and it is unfair for the band. Now, the hardest thing for me reviewing this album is that I couldn't find correct words to describe the music. Mentioning musical genres to designate this album made me look so stupid and naive. There's no other bands doing the music the way Kekal is doing. It's so strangely different than most of the music out there you may call as "metal" with all the seemingly countless derivatives and sub-genres. Even by Kekal's "standard", this album is once again so uniquely different than the rest of their discography, but yet at the same time it's so familiar. I can't explain why, I have no words for it, I just knew when playing it "this is unmistakably Kekal", it can't be anything else.
"Envisaged" is Kekal's 13th full-length album. Yes you read it correctly: thirteenth! And as a band that has been active since 1995, exactly 27 years in August 2022, they never seem to feel tired in doing what they love to do which is creating music and putting together albums after albums. Kekal is one of those bands that you can consider as "criminally underrated" in the sense that they are technically more underrated than the usual "underrated bands" when it comes to attention and reception within the metal scene. Although they were one of the first and very few Indonesian bands who received recognition outside Asia by releasing albums in Europe and North America back in the day, not to mention touring Europe. They never went "popular" enough to be noticeable above the surface level, even in their native land Indonesia. At the "peak" of their career in the mid 2000s, you may have heard their name in metal magazines and webzines around the world, but still you would need to dive deeper to really find their albums and to experience their music. Kekal in 2010s and 2020s is now considered as a back-to-the-underground kind of band, an "outcast" if you will, with not many people seem to understand and appreciate their music. Many of the younger metal fans don't even know that this band even exist. But the good news is that getting their music is now quite easy, thanks to the digital distribution channels, especially Bandcamp. It's just a matter of taking a chance to discover the music of Kekal.
Lyrically, "Envisaged" shows us many hints of their previous album "Quantum Resolution", with all the references to stuff like Quantum Physics, simulation theory, human consciousness, Gnostic spirituality, duality and illusion, and all that jazz (with "jazz" as an emphasis). But I don't want to discuss about the lyrics here, as always. If you are interested with the lyrics, you can read them on their album Bandcamp page and if you don't seem to "understand" them, easy, you can download behind-the-lyrics explanation (they call it a "written discourse") for free in PDF format with over 120 pages (!!!) worth of writing. What I want to do is to review their music based on my own musical perspective, with the interview as a supporting information. Let's dig the music, shall we?
Upon playing the first track called "Anthropos Rising" (which I already knew from the digital single they released back in November 2021), I knew that this album is going to be more melodic and atmospheric than the previous album "Quantum Resolution". Stylistically, this track doesn't provide any hints to "what's coming next", but it is enough to work as a kind of "warming up" or the "get ready for the thrill" type of music. The production is crisp and clear enough, but not as tight and glued together as I would expect. The drums sound better this time, more alive and kicking than their previous album, with a louder hi-hats in the mix similar to their most loved 2003 album "1000 Thoughts of Violence" to accentuate the occasional poly-rhythmic plays. The main rhythm guitar tone sounds dryer and not too compressed. I guess they wanted it that way, with a much-less distortion than what "normal metal bands" would do with their guitars. Next track, "Born Anew" started with the proggy opening riffs that quickly morphed into something nerdy to the point you might imagine the band Rush (the godfather of all nerd-rock) jamming while doing Ayahuasca. Jeff's vocals here sound like he transforms into a Gnostic-Geddy, with the guitar works comparable to the 80s era Rush. You can hear unconventional jazzy chords played over open riffs most of the time. But this song doesn't stop there, halfway to the music the black metal section kicks in with blastbeats done in triplets (a typical Kekal-styled blastbeats we know and love) for a moment before the music changes abruptly to a danceable EBM beats layered over some ambient strings and choir background. Important to note, Kekal always experiments with changes in tempo, key, and time-signatures in almost every song. So every time you play one song, that song would develop quite nicely and cohesively with some twists and turns, and without warning it already took you to a very different place with a different feel and atmosphere. This "formula" is what makes Kekal unique, because these changes don't really feel like they are "forced", they just flow quite naturally. Track #3 "The Alchemy Of Creation" follows suit with almost a full break, presenting us with a doomy and moody (a moody-doom with a doomy-mood?) instrumental ambient piece with orchestral strings synthesizers at the forefront backed with slow playing guitars and drums in the background. This piece reminds me of King Crimson's "Providence" meets Bohren & der Club of Gore type of atmospheric doom. I like the way they present the songs. The placements of the tracks are good because you can feel the atmospheric continuation from the start to finish. This is probably what makes "Envisaged" unique, it feels very cinematic in the sense that you can imagine watching a movie with all the dramas, plot twists, and different paces between the scenes. There are all done in a "typical Kekal" fashion: which is an unmistakably atypical music. Where do we go from here? We never know. We can't guess. We can't expect. Listening to this album is like taking a journey to an unknown destination, so any expectation is futile. All you know is that we are moving forward and never going back, along the way we may encounter pretty girls or ugly monsters. Both remains a high probability. This is the case with the song "Zero Point", a beautiful gothic post-reggae groove rock-a-weirdo that comes with an unexpected ending. The album then ends perfectly with the song called "Destiny Recalibration" at Track #9. It is a unique song that showcases the emotional restraints in the multilayered melody lines and vocals, and the song itself really builds up neatly without losing its emotionally-controlled environment. This song sums up the entire album, almost like a conclusion with all the diverse range of styles being blended together into one single package.
The guitars alternate between the difficult jazzy and dissonant chords, down to the more simple and atmospheric note-by-note picking style adopted in many post-rock and post-punk music. Gone are the heavy and aggressive riffings we heard in their older albums like "Acidity" or "1000 Thoughts of Violence". The black metal tremolo-style guitars are still there, but used only when needed. Metallic full-body distortion is almost nonexistent. Sound-wise, you can't really consider "Envisaged" a metal album, but it has many metal elements (especially the drum-work) that makes it enough to be called metal with confidence. There are countless of influences from other music being displayed here as well, especially electronic and ambient-dub. I guess Kekal has become a band of its own that doesn't need to conform itself to the stylistic cliche of metal and whatnot.
The rest of the songs are varied between atmospheric and melodic prog-rock approach with added strong grooves and electronic twists, to a jazzy presentation of synth-rock/electronic-goth music, to almost a modern interpretation of anarcho-punk music with advanced guitar-works akin to King Crimson, Killing Joke and Voivod mixed with post-punk/dub hybrid. The general atmosphere of the album is dark. Not a depressive kind of dark like their 2008 album "Audible Minority", but more introspective and spiritual in exploring and opening-up all the darkness in life without hesitation. The choices of chords and chord-progressions enhance the dark atmosphere of this album, and so the texture. Production-wise, it seems that the guitar, bass and drums sound intentionally darker and "punkier" in this album. The bass is distorted as usual. Overall, the production has some analog feel to it, including the addition of dub-styled echoing reverbs and delay-effects to the vocals.
It is hard to pick the highlights from this album. All the songs are almost equally strong, no fillers, and each of them has its own distinct character that can stand on its own. But yet if we put all the songs together, they make a complete album that takes you to a mentally and emotionally exhilarating journey.
All in all, for me "Envisaged" is Kekal's finest and most solid output in more than 10 years. It may not beat the songwriting and performance quality of their "Top 3" albums during their peak period ("1000 Thoughts of Violence", "Acidity", and "The Habit of Fire"), and no one expects it to be, but "Envisaged" is arguably better than anything they put out after 2008's "Audible Minority", including their already excellent 2020 album "Quantum Resolution". It is recommended to anyone dares to try a fresh different music within the overly-saturated metal genres. The album is easy to enjoy, but yet difficult to grasp. We just need to let go all the stereotypical judgment.
"Envisaged" is available in digital and physical formats. Digital means that you can both download the high-quality album via Bandcamp, and also streaming on various mainstream platforms. CD is available through a local Indonesian independent label called Elevation Records, with a unique Digipak packaging. Cassette tape is also available in a bright green color. Visit the band's website at https://www.kekal.org or their Bandcamp page https://kekal.bandcamp.com to buy the album.
