Album Info / Overview | Media Reviews | Where to Buy

Reviews of KEKAL - "The Painful Experience"

I just absolutely love when I receive an album from a band that I had never previously heard of and am completely floored by it. This is one of those albums! Kekal is a band hailing from Indonesia and they play some very original style of music here. There are parts on this album from black, thrash, death, progressive, melodic and even once in a great while a little industrial metal thrown in. What really amazed me about this is not the fact of how many different styles are present but how seamlessly they are put together. This is definitely a testament to the band's songwriting ability, which is well above average. How this band is still relatively unknown is beyond me considering the level of talent that is present. Everything about this album is excellent but the highlight for me was definitely the excellent lead guitar work. It is not that this is an ultra-shred fest but rather the leads just fit so well with the music and just adds that extra punch to take it over the top. The vocals also vary quite a bit from harsh growls to screaming and then a clean melodic tone and this also adds to the overall effectiveness of the music. The songs are mainly up-tempo but with plenty of breakdowns and twists and turns to keep every song interesting and to differentiate between them. The only real complaint I can make is the completely unnecessary waste of time at the end of the disc. There are 77 tracks on this disc but actually nothing but time wasting from track 11 to track 76. I know this is a pet peeve both Michel and I share and I am sure more than a few others as well. I still wish bands would stop doing this or at least tell me what purpose this serves other than to be annoying. I would have to say if you are fans of the more extreme side of the metal spectrum such as bands like Cradle of Filth, In Flames, Sigh and Dark Tranquility you should find this extremely interesting. Plain and simple this is some good shit!!! --Mystophales (Metalcrypt.com) 4.5 out of 5

Kekal is back with another black metal release for all of the starved fans out there. The Painful Experience is the bands third cd release and features Azhar (bass / vocals), Leo (guitars) and Jeff (guitars / vocals). The band chose to work on material for this album rather than go back and remaster their 1996 demo Contra Spiritualia Nequitiae for release on cd. While it would have been cool to see Contra Spiritualia Nequitiae released on cd The Painful Experience is a better release. Kekal still comes at listeners with their double-guitar attack and should do a number on most fans. The music is faster than before but what really stands out on this release is the quality of production. It took the band a couple of albums to get it done but the production level on The Painful Experience is much better than on their previous releases. It is great to actually hear what the band intended to make their music sound like instead of listening to music that was hollow at best. The fast paced music is typical Kekal. It shreds from beginning to end with the coarse chords and energetic leads. Jeff and Leo are a good pair on this album and make the music both haunting and interesting. The band takes a more aggressive posture on this album and it is a change for the better. The band also displays some technical play on this album. The guitars are well done and move very well from screaming fast parts to the more haunting melodic elements that are found on the cd. Kekal is still a band that people will either love at first listen or hate but with this album there should be mostly those who love the band. The vocals are one of the more interesting parts of this album. The traditional high-pitched vocals are there as listeners might expect but interwoven into the vocals are some even higher pitched screeching, ethereal female vocals and even some clean vocals. The band shows that they do not want to become boring. Kekal has a definite sound that fans like but they are not afraid to reach out and try new stuff. The high screeching takes some getting used to though. At first listen it sounds pretty irritating but after a couple of listens it is apparent the band chose the vocals to fit with the music. The female vocals could have been a little stronger though. They were overshadowed by the music and really didnt add the punch that Kekal used them for on past releases. The clean singing is quite a change and is very interesting. While abandoning the screaming vocals would not do, adding in more clean vocals on a future release should please fans who listen to this release. Kekal uses this album as an opportunity to show fans what they can really do musically and when it is combined with the strong song-writing the band has displayed on previous releases it is evident the band has put it all together on this release. Songs on The Painful Experience include The Monsters Within, Crave for Solid Ground, Mean Attraction, Like There's No Other Way to Go, Behind Closed Doors, After The Storm, Given Words, Militia Christi, The Painful Experience and Via Dolorosa. Kekal has taken the best elements from their first 2 releases and built upon them on this release. The Painful Experience is an excellent album and should find its way on to many listeners top 10 lists of 2001. The band soars with the extra attention to poroduction and shows it finally put the full package together. -- Alex Mull (Intense Radio)

This pearl of Indonesia define the word avantgarde. I want to call their music black metal, but really that's a stretch. It incorporates so many different forms of metal, as well as genres outside the metal realm into one of the wildest and most unique almagams I've ever had the experience of aurally enjoying. "The Painful Experience" has elements of black metal, old school thrash and death metal, but crosses it with techno-industrial soundclips, electronic drumming, and jazz timings. There are also about four of five different vocal stylings employed. You have a witch-howling screech, a deeper death growl, both male and female clean, operatic vocals and more. The end result is indescribable. The closest thing I can come up with is... think of Sigh, the Japanese "black metal band" on crack! The production has a little too much treble, but I have a feeling the band may have wanted it that way. I've never had as much of a problem trying to pin down a band before. But I do suggest checking into them if you're bored of all the music you've heard because I can guarantee you've never heard anything like this before. Grade: 72/100 (Into Obscurity)

Ding-Ding, Kekal round three has just begun. This time however it's an easy CD to get your hands on having been handled in by Clenchedfist Records (bravo CFR for grabbing this band we all know and love!) The new album is called 'The Painful Experience' and listening to it is anything but that. Kekal is a band who knows their style, maintains it but yet manages to improve themselves with each new offering. Ever the vocalist experimenters, the guys decided to throw in some high pitched scream/singing parts which would have been better left alone however this truly is about the only thing I have complaint with. The CD offers us what have come to expect from Kekal without pulling too many punches, it's fast, extreme, heavy and demanding of your attention as you listen to it. Jeff is certainly becoming a first rate guitar player proving his skills in both the extreme and technical realms with his work here. We get incredible leads all through this CD that just make each song, and it's filled with huge riffs. Production is also exactly what you've come to expect from Kekal. No better than their previous albums which I know for some made a big difference as to whether or not they would listen to their albums, but for those like me it was certainly well worth listening to. If you were album to enjoy their previous albums despite the lower production levels then this CD will be no different except that the music itself is better. The other aspect that plenty of people have bashed about Kekal's past release is the use of 'the black box' for drums. This time around Kekal still shows us a line up of 3 people, Jeff on guitars, Azhar on bass, and Leo on guitars. However in the additional section the credit drums as being 'Sang Hitam' which to me seems like a persons name. Indeed there are no parts on this album that have that impossible to play sound like in the past however the drums themselves sound electronic. Maybe they just name the black box and threw that in the credits I don't know. Overall I believe this to be a real drummer but at many times you hear the clicky sound of electronics on the drums. Again I know this bugs some people but with this album having the incredible brutality level it does I'm just fine with it. Track 4 'Like There's No Other Way To Go' tends to get a bit experimental at times, actually sounding like they've listened to Believer's 'Dimensions' just a few times too many. A great song with a handful of really weird musical pieces popping up here and there. Kekal gives us a total of 11 songs that if your into the extreme black metal sound or just like what you have heard of Kekal in the past you got to get your hands on. There is also this one riff that comes in right about 3:45 of track two that reminds me of the old Hawaii 5-0 theme music, hear it every time I listen to this song, and actually it's a nice piece within it. This is an easy to CD to get available all over mail order places to be sure to treat yourself this Christmas season and get a copy of it. --D Lister (Dead Zine) 9 out of 10

I didn't know what to expect of Kekal when this disc arrived in my mailbox. I had never heard of this band before, and the packaging gave no clues to the type of music they would play, aside from the band photo, where each member is wearing a rock shirt: Rush, SOD, and Iron Maiden. My first listening experience ended during the middle of the second song. What I heard was some pretty intense and somewhat symphonic black metal, a kind of music that just doesn't do anything for me, although I do appreciate its validity within the realms of metal. But subsequent spins of "The Painful Experience" revealed more. What I hear is not too bad, but not that great either. Their execution and songwriting skills are decent, adding symphonic and classic/power metal touches to raw blazing black metal. Blast beats and keyboards are present, but they are very far from over-saturating the music, which is a good thing. The guitar tone sounds very Scandinavian, and just heavy as hell. I love it! And they come up with some pretty damn good riffage. But I really don't appreciate the drum programming. While for the most part the programming sounds fine (after all, so many metal bands trigger the fuck out of their drums anyways), during some of the blasts, snare rolls, and fast cymbal work, it is all too obvious the drums are fake. But I can get past this. Listening to bands like Necrophagist, Symbyosis, and Oxiplegatz have softened my ears to drum programming (although it still sucks). But what really turns me off are the vocals. While some of the acid-drenched blackened screams and clean singing parts are tolerable, the rest of the vocal styles are just horrible and unlistenable, as if they are making a joke of themselves. Perfect example: the song "Like There's No Other Way to Go". A damn fine song, sounding like a strange mix of Nightingale, Judas Priest, and Ratt. The blackened vocals are great, especially with the slower riffage and lack of blast beats. But the higher, clean, wanna-be King Diamond vocals are absolutely horrid and ruin the song completely. Sounds like a 2-year old crying. I have never heard another band like Kekal. They are unique and interesting, and also intriguing considering coming from the distant land of Indonesia. And I give them much credit for coming up with something new, although not entirely original, obviously drawing from many influences including the aforementioned bands on their shirts. If it wasn't for the terrible vocals, which earns them the "3" I gave them, I would recommend this album to those metalheads that like a variety of metal music from black to progressive. --Nathan (Metal-Rules.com) 3 out of 5

Well if this isn't some odd stuff. Indonesian black metal that's not marketed as black metal (good for them on that) that the label tries to push as "for fans of IN FLAMES, JUDAS PRIEST, and CRADLE OF FILTH". I don't know where they get the idea that JUDAS PRIEST fans would like this because the vocals are all throatshredding, but hey, it's their marketing slogan, and in the band picture, the three guys are wearing RUSH, SOD, and IRON MAIDEN shirts. The music is pretty odd, and refreshingly original, with a full, noisy production that is a real wall of sound as they keep the black metal onslaught going most of the way. This thing begins with a completely violent blast accompanied by simple keyboard notes and it doesn't get normal from there. When extremity is your language, it's what you do to change it up and give it a rest that shows how good your vocabulary really is. Halfway through the album there's two songs in a row, "Like There's No Other Way to Go" and "Behind Closed Doors", that sound like completely juiced-up traditional metal (that PRIEST reference?), like someone had given some NWOBHM-ers in 1980 a TESTAMENT album and said "Chew on This!". Then we hit the most cacophonous din since (ULVER's) "Nattens Madrigal", "After The Storm", which inexplicably almost stops to give one of those guitar hero's solos and then it's right back to the violence. Somebody forgot to give these guys the metal rulebook, and they're all the better for it. There are only two real failings to this cool, diversified extreme metal album. The first is the fact that they pull this 'hidden track' garbage, but with 77 tracks, it's obvious, and in the booklet they even list lyrics for 'hidden track'. Hey guys, fuck you and your hidden track! The other problem is that the vocal performance isn't very good. Two of these guys do vocals, and it's so changed up, who knows who does what. Their standard black metal rasp is nondescript, but at least succesful and doesn't detract from the music. They have a clean vocal that pops up every so often that isn't embarrassing. If they left it there, they'd left it there, they'd be doing well but they don't. They've got this one voice which pops up way too much where I don't even know what they were intending, but sounds like Seth Putnam (A.C.) doing a piss-take on heavy metalfalsetto. Some horrible takes on extreme vocals pop up here and again. This being the band's third album (no clue how they sounded on earlier albums), I'd think the one thing this band needs at this point is a good producer for album number four to eliminate some of the garbage, and we could have an album of the year on our hands. -(Lamentations of The Flame Princess Newsletter)

I do have to say my jaw dropped several times during this CD. These Indonesian guys are knocking down barriers, mixing what almost sounds like techno with black/speed metal. And the craziest thing is: they only do it with three members! The first thing I thought on the first song was that it sounded like Cradle Of Filth, but it quickly progressed into so much more, telling a very dark tale with it's twisted riffs, blazing drum beats, and parts that make you want to bang your head 1987 style. It's definetly like nothing I've ever heard, in a very good way. Sometimes the tempo of the song is so fast that it sounds like the drummer should be having a coronary... the only way it could be faster is if they had a drum machine. The guitarwork weaves it's melodies through the drumwork, switching from brutal to beautiful like the clouds suddenly dissapearing. The recording is a little better than their last release, which I also liked immensely, but still slightly lacking in clarity. That was the only downside I saw. I'm sure in time they will be able to perfect their recording stature. So if you like black metal or just metal in general, check these guys out. Definetly worth the money. --cbrickhouse (Pahardcore.com) 5 out of 5

Kekal is an Indonesian band that has been together since 1995 and "The Painful Experience" is their third album. This trio has created with this disk something really interesting. The band combines black metal with classical metal and does this in an innovating way. Beside these two main elements they also throw in some samples and progressive elements. The result of this is a varied disk with fresh sounding extreme metal. The vocals are done in many different ways and one of these voices really gets on my nerves with its Donald Duck timbre. The clean singing and other shrieks and growls sound good. I was really surprised with the high standard of compositions and also the production is solid and crisp sounding. "The Painful Experience" is a disk for adventurous black metal fans and any other extreme music lover. The title song is by the way one of the highlights of this album. It is a semi ballad but not in the sugar kind of way. It sounds really captivating and is filled with great keyboards and guitar work. --Bruno Van de Velde (Undertow Webzine) 7 out of 10

Kekal come to us from Jakarta, Indonesia, and in their luggage you'll be sure to find some serious, keyboard enhanced, raw and shady death metal incorporating aspects of several other metal sub-genres (melodic/black/atmospheric). The opening few tracks, "The Monsters Within" and "Crave For Solid Ground" start the album off on a fast tempo, with mandatory drum blasts and rousing, buzz-saw riffs courtesy of guitarist Leo. The music here reminds me of an early A Canarous Quintet. As the album progresses, though, Kekal adopt a more interesting, slightly rockin' edge to their songs, still unmistakably death metal, but with more than the average amount of blatant groove and fist-pounding energy. This album is intense, no doubt, and the sound never strays far from Scary Street, but this barely perceptible occasional rock edge keeps the album in control and makes for a more interesting listen. I'm not sure if drummer Sang Hitam is a session drummer or a full-fledged member of the band (he is not pictured in the band photo), but he does a wonderful job behind the kit, and is very solid in his death metal rudiments. Singer/bassist Azhar and guitarist/singer Jeff have a seemingly endless supply of different vocal styles between the two of them: some good, some not-so effective. These include (but are not limited to) a classic metal screech, a sing-songy tone, a bizarre, almost operatic howl, an old-school hardcore urgent sounding tone, and a completely odd Chris Cornell going-through-puberty/nagging grandma sound. All of these different voices give this CD a very schizophrenic personality, and this goes well with the diverse nature of the music. It's good to see Indonesian bands getting some exposure, and I must give kudos to ClenchedFist Records for releasing this one domestically. Kekal are definitely one of the country's most talented death metal bands, and The Painful Experience is enjoyable all the way through. Will this open the door for more Indonesian bands to gain popularity here in the States? There's a very good chance. Let's see where they go from here. --Unearth (Metal Judgment Summary)