AUDIBLE MINORITY

Kekal is an Indonesian Experimental Metal Band that has slowly hemorrhaged members since its beginnings in 1995 up to this 2008 album where the band consisted of two members, each contributing vocals, guitars, and programming. Programming should be emphasized for this album is primarily an experiment in the use of samplers and overdubs. While the band still injects metal elements into the music, the electronics often overwhelm the sound with mixed results. AUDIBLE MINORITY was available for free download, so I decided to give it a try. The album certainly has some interesting moments, but when I read that it was spawned from some "underground" I translate "basement." This is somewhat unfair, but there is a sense of amateurism to this collection of songs.

The music itself is pretty eclectic. There are sections that could be considered avant-garde, acid jazz, new wave, psychedelic, and even dance music, but most of it is electronic post- metal. Weighty guitars over looped beats create dark soundscapes a bit like the new Isis. But where Isis remains rooted, Kekal is all over the place. Armed with samplers and synthesizers, the two guitarists seem like two kids who just opened a neighbor's toy box for the first time. As a result, we definitely get some excitement, but the result is also quite rough around the edges.

Thankfully there are limited vocals for the two singers have quite limited skills. At their best, they sound like Midnight Oil or a poor man's Mars Volta, at their worst a distorted wash. The sampled sounds are sometimes interesting, sometimes annoying. The band succumbs to excessive repetition on more than one occasion, and loses the sense of interest they've generated at least in this listener.

Overall, this is completely non-essential, but the price was right. I got to hear a few interesting ideas, and as I don't have a lot of other records with a similar sound, I still pull it up once in a long while. Sample it first, you can decide if it deserves space in your player.

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