JAR OF KINGDOM

"Jar of Kingdom" is the debut studio album from Australian progressive extreme metal act Alchemist. The album was originally released through the Lethal label in 1993. "Jar of Kingdom" was re-released through the Thrust label in 1999 in order for Alchemist to be released from their contract with Thrust and seek an international label deal instead. Until then their music had solely been available in Australia. The re-release includes Alchemist´s 1991 demo.

The original album is a pretty raw progressive death metal affair. Certainly experimental but not neccessarely enjoyable or high quality the whole time. One thing I have always been a fan of when talking about Alchemist is the raw vocal delivery by frontman and guitarist Adam Agius. There´s a man who sings/semi-growls like he means it. Really aggressive approach to singing right there. The music features some psychadelic parts that help make the album a bit more interesting and those moments are mostly created by Roy Torkington´s lead guitar effects. He is a really inventive guitarist. If you want an example of how varied some tracks on Jar of Kingdom are just listen to the third track on the album titled "Purple".

The musicianship are pretty strong too but the sound production drags the album down. It´s a bit muddy and lacks power. It´s too bad because both the musicianship and the songwriting are on a decent level, so objectively seen "Jar of Kingdom" is in some ways an interesting first release from Alchemist. On a personal level I can´t say that the music on the album really interests me much though. There are moments here and there where I´m thinking that this is a really good album but soon after comes a section where I´m not very impressed so the best word to describe the album would probably be inconsistent. A 2.5 - 3 star (55%) star rating is fair.