Recently I’ve decided to delve deeper into the Indonesian underground. The reason is simple and I think it shouldn’t be a surprise. Indonesian extreme music scene is one hell of a source of fuckin’ sick bands! And during my quest I’ve come across this great death/black(ened) crust band from East Java (Indonesia) and their EP named “Dystopia”.
Well, 1984 and Dystopia, I guess the lyrical content we can establish pretty quickly. But fuck me runnin’, this is a killer material! Released in January 2018 on tape via Tarung Records (Jakarta, ID), Broken Noise Records (Malaysia) and Voirloup Production (France), and on CD by Forget The Pain.Inc (Malang, ID), apparently the physical material is sold out now (and I am not surprised at all), so all I can do is to enjoy listening to digital version.
This 5-song EP opens with “Rising Warfear”, and from the very beginning it comes with this nice black guitar riff with the massive support of drums and bass to the boot. And this intro-like (because I guess it’s a sort of intro) finishes with the introduction of the vocalist…and hooray to the second song.
“Hound of Panopticon” comes from the demo (Sept 2017) and I could swear I’ve heard that riff before, but I am not gonna spend time recalling where, it’s just a helluva sick tune and I am enjoying it. Yes, it’s definitely BM-influenced, but some passages brought the aforementioned death metal to the front. And vocal is crust-y. Yep, the combination is here and it works. “Hound of Panopticon” clocks almost in 4 minutes and it’s already a favourite.
Track number 3 is titled “Dystopian Nightmare” and we don’t deviate from the established pattern, which I applaud. Doubled (trippled) vokills are a welcome bonus too. The sound of bassdrums evokes – for some strange reason – some harvester-like killing machine….flap-flap-flap-flap…and you’re fucking dead in pieces. Nice! And unlike the previous song this also has a slower passage, which makes the song more interesting (because, although good, who wants to listen to the same song progression for the whole EP? Yep, you’re right).
Another almost 4 minutes belongs to “To The Vulture”. Again, nice distorted guitar opening and to my surprise we start slow, the melody evokes the urgency …of something, but then the drums start and I just want to mosh. Now we’re talking, people! This one has everything, pissed off vocals and the melody. I am still pleasantly surprised by the mixture of black metal guitar riffs, political declaration in the lyrics and the death metal drums. And all this in the punky simple melody – all of which sounds just amazing.
The last song is a cover of The Ugly’s “Diggin Grave”, which I don’t know the original, so I can’t say how true the cover is, but suffice to say I’m blown to pieces but the riff. I think I want to explore The Ugly’s discography right now!
I don’t know about you, but I regret not to be able to secure this stuff on physical release, but I am pretty sure I’m gonna give this not a few listenings.
Just brilliant. Go check for yourself, you might have a new fave band!
Find them and follow them here: https://1984crust.bandcamp.com/album/dystopia
