Style: Avant-garde, Black Metal, Electronica (Mixed vocals)
Review by: Christopher
Country: Indonesia/Canada
Release date: 15 July, 2022
The expectation when sifting through the underground of any scene is that you’ll mostly be dealing with relatively new bands as well as some artists who have flown under the radar for maybe a decade. But then Kekal comes blipping up on your radar with a squadron of thirteen albums that they’ve been hiding since 1995, like a hostile nation covertly developing a nuclear arsenal. By all rights, a band with such a long and fruitful career (and a surprisingly comprehensive Wikipedia page) should be far better known within the scene, and yet they languish with a little over 1,400 followers on Spotify. Why? It might be due to the fact that they adhere to an anarchist philosophy that has caused them to resist ever signing with a record label. It could be because they identify as an entity with no official members. But more likely it’s because their music is just really fucking weird.
Before getting into their latest album, Envisaged, it’s worth delving quickly into the band’s history. Formed in Indonesia 27 years ago by multi-instrumentalist and producer Jeff Arwadi, Kekal’s first album, Beyond the Glimpse of Dreams, was a fairly straightforwardly black metal effort with a creative edge and unusually crisp production. However, with subsequent releases they began to try out a range of other influences until, by fifth album The Habit of Fire, they had incorporated jazz, ambient, psychedelic, prog rock and electronic elements into their sound. Since then, those experimental embellishments have become more and more prominent over an ever-quieting black metal foundation.
Envisaged kicks off with a couple of strong, off-kilter tracks that are pretty typical of Kekal’s later work; “Born Anew” in particular is one of the stand-outs, contrasting lighter psych/jazz of a The Mars Volta flavour with more conventional black metal sections, before swerving into an outro where a meaty electronic beat plays under a synth symphony. Yet as the album progresses, the black metal components recede into the background and the album veers more into Shpongle style psych-electronica territory. The black metal elements—though they remain present in the drumming which shifts between archetypal blast beats and jazzier complexity—are used relatively sparingly for the rest of the album, resurfacing for just a couple of tracks, notably on the return-to-heaviness closer “Destiny Recalibration”.
In his review of the band’s previous album Quantum Resolution for our site, Matt said that one of the drawbacks was the disjointed feel of the songs. This seems to have been addressed here; Envisaged has a somewhat contradictory sense of flow — there’s a languid, psychedelic feel throughout. Even when a pulsating slew of blast beats and harsh vocals rips through the middle of “Born Anew” it doesn’t disturb the mood or feel out of place. The dissonant strings that open “Anarchy in the New Earth”, the wonky polyrhythms on “Anthropos Rising”, and the ghostly whispers that close “Zero Point” all add to the anticipated strangeness but they never make it unpleasant to listen to, which can be a problem with the dissonance and outright weirdness of avant-garde music. Perhaps that’s a defining trait of truly great avant-garde music: to be able to make every bizarre new feature you cram into your music fit seamlessly into your overall sound.
The clean vocals have a somewhat reedy quality and as much as Arwadi won’t be winning any singing competitions any time soon, his cleans do fit the music well. The baritone vocals and harshes are stronger, and the Tommy Giles style frog-croak whispers are good fun. I’m not convinced that the ambient instrumental track “The Alchemy of Creation” needs to be over seven minutes long, and some of the songs blur together a bit in the record’s middle third, but these aren’t major concerns. As with all avant-garde music, the degree to which the listener can rise to the general challenge of appreciating such abstruse work is the main factor at play.
Alongside their anarchist philosophy, Kekal are also a deeply spiritual band, and Envisaged continues in that vein. According to the band, “the music and lyrics represent a creative spiritual journey following continuous revelations regarding the current events on Earth” that “signify the process of global collective awakening” which will lead humanity “to transcend the matrix and rise beyond the construct of duality” —a somewhat lofty ideal for any album to live up to. The lyrics are written after a prose poetry fashion and eschew any rhyme scheme or structure. The extent to which they’ll interest the prospective listener will depend on the degree to which you subscribe to similar philosophies/how high you are when you listen. Personally, the album’s concept is a little too esoteric for my tastes, but I respect that it’s a rather original and intriguing narrative for a record, and the music is perfectly suited to accompany such an idiosyncratic, spiritual concept.
Kekal are clearly masters of their very specific craft but your mileage will likely vary depending on whether you can stomach their heady brew of genre experimentation, as well as the album’s rather arcane philosophy. As avant-garde goes, however, this is surprisingly accessible and Kekal’s doubling down on their psychedelic side makes this far more palatable and flowing than some of their previous releases. While I certainly admire this band and this album, I know it’s not made for me. Someone out there will adore Envisaged for what it is: a bold experiment by an artist with integrity, passion and talent. It’s unlikely to make the regular rotation of most listeners, but that’s avant-garde for you. Kekal could continue to release music for another 27 years and still be underground, and that would be nothing to be ashamed of.
Recommended tracks: Born Anew, The Ascending Collective, Anarchy in the New Earth
Recommended for fans of: Ulver’s avant-garde years, Shpongle, The Mars Volta, Kayo Dot, Thy Catafalque
You may also like: Vitam Aeternam, Human By Nature, Hail Spirit Noir
Final verdict: 7/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Kekal have no official lineup, but:
– Jeff Arwadi (guitars, vocals, and probably most other things)
– Leo Setiawan (guitars, vocals)
– Azhar Levi Sianturi (bass, vocals)
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