Listening to Social Black Yelling (or simply known in abbreviation, SBY) debut LP,
Mankind Under Condemnation, from start to finish, possibly the listener's first impression is: those guys tried to manage their sound like old school thrash metal such as Sepultura, Kreator, Exodus, Sodom, or even Slayer. Yes, in fact, Social Black Yelling has managed it successfully. They have a well-delivered atmosphere of old school thrash metal, but just to be honest, with their kinda modern sound style, they failed to manage it to become a bit raw. Hmm, holy-damned hell! Above all, this album sound quality is well produced anyway!
Within eight songs and thirty four minutes of music, and with social-politics lyrical themes on preference, SBY fairly varied in songwriting composition. All song is arranged in aggressive faced riffs. They also dealt with a bit catchy and a bunch of groovy sound. The song like
Hexagon is the finest example to check out. With tasteful riffs, and in other hand, they also managed to put into the song a sort of harmonic solos, and finally as the result,
Hexagon is so memorable in mind. The listener will also get the same sensation with the songs such as
Disturbance Territory,
Emosi Distorsi, and
Il Principle.
On the subject of SBY's musicianship, their duo guitarist surely have significant contribution in creating awesome solos, thick and fast rhythm in each song entire the album. Then about SBY's drumming and bass guitar play, though they don't offer any special unique style yet, but still, they offer a hard-intense of playing. Therefore,
Mankind Under Condemnation does deserve a well-played thrash metal album predicate. Then about SBY's vocals, perhaps, many listeners will have their own different opinion regard on it. This situation is adequately acceptable and understandable. This is because of their vocals are a bit reminiscent of many well-known thrash or heavy metal vocalists. The mid-ranged vocal delivery with occasional deeper and heavier scream where they used it for a strong fierce-impression, however, this approach has made it fitted with the intensity of the music. So, it's fair enough to say that their vocals have reached the maturity side. Yes, there's no major weakness or flaw which can be found in SBY's vocals signature!
Well, now the conclusion. Aside from their short duration of the album as whole (only 34 minutes long of music), SBY's debut album,
Mankind Under Condemnation, surely is a damn great thrash metal release. It's great first step to catch and gain more attention from thrash metal fans of global world. Yes, that's right they bring nothing new in thrash metal style of innovation, but concerning their intense songwriting and well-played of thrash metal, it's more than enough to consider..., and to check this one out!
Forza thrash!
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Mankind Under Condemnation album line up:
+ Guitars ~ Mamvaluchi Aryun and M. Hanifan "Boni" Bintang
+ Drum ~ Yahya Prabukusumo
+ Bass ~ Nizar H. Mazkuri
+ Vocals ~ M. Fardhani "Bucay" Ismail.
