When I read about Eternal Madness who play some kind of death metal combined with Balinese traditional music, I said to myself; hell no! My first assumption was how could they combine or mix such styles into unison. However, after getting a chance listen to them seriously, I was impressed. Yes, I'm lucky, my half Balinese friend has their original CD,
Abad Kegilaan. The album contains nine tracks with 42 minutes of music. The whole track is sung in Indonesian
Bahasa. Don't you worry for not understanding the language, even the sharpest Indonesian hearing won't be able to understand completely what the hell they sing about. You will hear the vocalist sings with snarl and growl, sometimes with a depressive angry tone and middle pitch scream. I said this, um, I mean, if you're seeking for a metal album with English lyrics clearly spoken, and or seeking for understandable and meaningful ones, this stuff isn't for you, guys! You can go to Kamelot's
The Black Halo where they successfully adopted the prestigious German literature, the work of both Thomas Mann and Von Goethe,
Doctor Faust!
So now, what did exactly Eternal Madness offer us in their third album? I'll say; their uniqueness, their originality. The sound pretty fitted the musical concept; combining death metal with Balinese ethnics music. This album is the real proof. It offers us a lot of melodic and harmonic guitar riffs within Balinese pentatonic scale. And, of course, it also gives us a fast and brutal both guitar and bass ripped out with hyperblast beats of drums which such delivery is capable enough to crunch the ears. In musical concept, eight tracks of
Abad Kegilaan relatively have similar style to each others. They play what we considered as death metal, but with their own style. Sometimes if you listen to the album carefully, it should be slightly technical death. Just try to imagine their neighbor Australian Psycroptic's technical guitar riffs, but with adding vast exotic (you can say it uncommon, strange, or whatever!) guitar riffs, Balinese scale. The only track with quite difference taste is the opening title called
Trance Elixir. This track is an epic instrumental with a typical strong progressive piece. So, that it is the music part, then what about lyric concept? As far I know, they have thrown hundreds of polished words to their lyrics. They tell us various topics about; madness, sin, religion, spiritualism, nation, blood, etc.
My conclusion, this is an excellent work. Eternal Madness invented their traditional music background to their 'death' musical concept - in large portion instead. Honestly right now, I have no idea about their two predecessor albums sound like, so I can't make a fair comparison. By the way, if you're purist death metal fan, this album isn't right choice for you, but if you're curious about death metal with an ethnic music touch, and looking for alternative choice within extreme metal tunes, yes, and this stuff is my best recommendation for you. Imagine someday you take a vacation In Bali; in a zephyr Bali coast, three hours and thirty three minutes before midnight, and you're a lucky bastard that get yourself in Eternal Madness’ gig, I encourage yourself to head-bang, meanwhile at the same time you also do “Kecak Dance”, and then you'll find yourself in a trance elixir!
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Note;
~ Gila Sepanjang Masa =
The All-time Madness
~ Di Abad Kegilaan =
In A Madness Century
~ Hujan Darah =
Rainy Blood
~ Duniapun Meratap Sekarat =
And the World Lament in Agony
~ Karena Dosa =
Cause of the Sins
~ Dari Otak Busuk =
From a Dirty Mind or
From a Rotten Brain
~ Dalam Lingkaran Samsara =
In the Circle of Misery
