Covers - Cromok's Forever In Time: no comments

One of the first few heavy metal records that I bought when I was still a younger version of me was this record of a local thrash metal legend called Cromok. I was caught awed when I first knew of the band and later on succumbed to the beauty of the oriental melodies neatly incorporated in every thrash metallic notes, chords and riffs in each and every song in this album. Mesmerizing. The album was released in 1993 by EMI.

Cromok was considered by many local metal heads as a legendary band in its own right. The band was formed in the late 1987 when all the founding members were still these four young long haired foreign students struggling to survive Australia. The good ol’ down under. By time, they have harvested a huge underground following and gained reputation and respect as the most popular Asian Thrash Metal band amongst the blond underground Australian head bangers at that time. They were so popular; to an extent the band was offered an opening slot for a Motorhead concert when Lemmy Kilmister and co was touring the country. The gig was unfortunately turned down by the band.

Enough about the band let us now examine the artwork. The cover depicted the head of a metal unicorn in its entire splendor. The unicorn has been a known trademark for the band since day one and appeared on the entire discography of the band except for one record which was Engraved in Eternity, a best of compilation released in 2003. I think it was indeed a very creative attempt to amalgamate the element of mysticism (unicorn being a mystic and mythical animal) and heavy metal (the metallic clad). To say that the artist envisioned an amalgamation between east and west would be a bit far fetched since I can’t really remember seeing unicorns being popularized as icons in any local myth or mystic tales.

It was rather odd to have a unicorn as a mascot since most of the Thrash Metal bands from that particular era, what more playing that type of music, were more keen towards explicit, horrific and sometime shocking images to embellish their record. The use of unicorns would give an impression that this was a tame band, although I have to admit that the band’s first record, Image of Purity which was released in 1991, was rather atrocious and ferocious in its own right compared to the songs available in Forever In Time. Maybe it suits the style, I don’t know. But still, it was one of the best cover for a local band, it is still is.

Covers - Necrotic Chaos's Regime Grotesque: no comments

I am writing this entry while Regime Grotesque is destroying my speakers and spontaneously my eardrums too. The next album cover that I wanted to share is Necrotic Chaos debut full length entitled Regime Grotesque. Necrotic Chaos is a brutal death metal band hailing from Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia. The band was formed in 1992, along with the surfacing of quite a number of Ipoh based Heavy Metal bands in the likes of Langsuyr (Black Death Metal), Athotorgh (Thrash) and Profane Creation (Death Metal) (Ipoh Metal militants as they called themselves), with 5 official releases under its belt. Regime Grotesque was released in 2003 by the cult label Ultra Hingax Productions containing 8 absolutely blistering, brutal, sick and quite technical death metal tracks. Oh there are no sappy or memorizable melodies here.

The undomesticated excellent drumming, which had always made an impact on me, was of the courtesy of one of the most brilliant and highly respected heavy metal drummer ever to emerge from Malaysia, the iconic Mr.Wira aka Old-T. On the other hand, the guitarist and one of the band’s founding members, Mr. Jadam, is also a legendary producer, highly regarded and well respected within the Malaysian heavy metal circuit. It was quite a disappointment that their Black As Incest EP failed to top the intensity shown in Regime Grotesque. The sound production was horrible too. Well, at least for me it was.

Now, enough about the band let us now examine the artwork. The cover illustration on this album was drawn by Desmond Sia, a local prolific illustrator known for his killer artworks battle fronting the epic releases of such distinguished bands in the likes of Impiety, Angel Corpse, Abhorrence and Profanatica. I have been a fan of Desmond Sia’s artwork since I first knew that he was a local and for his superb artwork in Impiety’s Skullfucking Armageddon. Total cult.

The cover gives a picture of images of skulls and ghouls the old school and analog way, if I may put it that way. Is there any other better ways to illustrate a cover for a death metal band than having skulls and ghoulish faces splattered all over the sleeve? Simple, horrifying and one look at the cover you know that you will be in for a sick treat. Decapitated bodies are so over rated these days.

With out any doubt, the illustration has managed to give proper justice to the title of the album. Notice two of the skulls were drawn to wear war helmets. I believe that would the interpretation for the word Regime. Do I need to point out that entire artwork is monstrous, gruesome and horrendous? That would be the artiste’s elucidation of the word Grotesque. Straight to the point.

Apart from the killer album cover, I have to say that this album was a very well defined album. From the name of the band, album title, cover artwork and the songs. Sick!

Get in touch with the band at:
http://www.myspace.com/necroticchaos

Covers - Langsuyr's The Eastern Cruelty: 3 comments

Hey, I am definitely getting the hang of doing this cover review series. Thank you MetalMark for this awesome inspiration. When I first had the idea to do this cover reviews series, there were a few album covers that flew straight into my head and made its way straight into my best album covers top ten list and this was one of them. Langsuyr’s The Eastern Cruelty EP cover which was released by Nebiula Production in 1996.

I was still a very naïve and young aspired metal head back when I first discovered this album in its cassette format on a shelve in a record store somewhere, and I have made it a mission to go and get this album. Why? Because I was attracted to the killer and evil cover artwork. Langsuyr is a Black Death metal band hailing from Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia and one of the earlier bands whose music prototyped a whole new genre, the Eastern Metal. Eastern Metal basically was heavy metal, usually black metal with the incorporation of Malay occult and mystical theme usually lyrically and rarely image. It may sound a bit trendy today to have occult and mystical Malay poems as lyrics, but back then it was a very unique and original phenomenon. The name Langsuyr or langsuir was taken from the name of the deadliest banshee, the deadliest version of the numerous versions of Malay female vampires available in the Malay folklore.

If my memory serves me correctly, the artwork was drawn by the band’s drummer at that time and the logo was designed by the guitarist. I have to prefer the logo on this release compared to their original logo on their first demo or any of their later releases. The Eastern Cruelty logo depicted the name of the band covered in flames. I loved the details and for me it has a very evil, wicked and eastern black magical atmosphere.

Let us examine the cover. The cover consists of the image of a seven headed dragon most probably as a reverence to one of their songs included in the EP entitled The Seven Headed Dragon of Pelangi. Pelangi is a Malay word for the rainbow. In the middle of the chaotic swerves and swirls of the dragon’s heads, sits a menacing looking female figure with a sinister grin which I believe to be a Malay female shaman. This was due to her being drawn holding an incense tray with her left hand in a position to cast a spell. It could have been the lady langsuir herself. Notice the long, sharp and disturbing fingernails?

I adored every bit of details available in this artwork. It seems that the dragon drawing and the female figure drawing were actually two pieces of artwork pasted together. Note the white line outlining the female figure? Although another explanation would explicate that the method of outlining a figure in an artwork is actually normal in order to highlight a particular character. Fair enough. Although I am no expert in art and the quality of an artwork, I would really like to believe that the whole The Eastern Cruelty artwork was drawn using colored pencils. The precision is excruciatingly well decorated. This cover will always be one of the best decorated album cover in my view.

Get in touch with Langsuyr:
www.myspace.com/langsuyrband

Covers - Claw's Summoning The Darkness: no comments

One of my favorite blog is MetalMark. I enjoyed reading his thoughts and personal views on all things metal. There is this one column in his blog that I enjoyed reading called Clash of the Album Covers, where MetalMark would post two or more album covers and later let his readers choose and decide their preference. It was fun reading the hilarious and side-splitting comments from his readers and MetalMark would occasionally give his own personal views and favorites. I decided to put out something similar but it would not be another Clash of the Album Covers rip off. It would be much more comparable to what MetalMark and his friends were doing in A Whole Lotta Album Covers, but since The Bullet Belt will only be concentrating on Malaysian Heavy Metal scene, it is obvious that I will only write about Malaysian Metal album covers. This will be fun I hope.

I shall start with Claw’s Summoning the Darkness 2009 demo cover. Claw is a promising grim and raw black metal band from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In Malaysia, this grim and raw type black metal sound is popularly known and labeled as Black Metal Hutan. Hutan is a malay word for forest. The sound was so grim, raw and primitive it must have been recorded primitively in some deep jungle some where, thus the term Forest Black Metal. Hey, that might just have been a new unique genre there if the bands could just throw in some unique trademarks. Well, as for the band, they have managed to release two well received demos and a four way split tape in 2008 since their inception into blasphemy in 2004. Summoning the Darkness was their most recent demo released through the dedicated Morbid Invasion Records. Some native tribesman out there in the deepest jungle, who must have engineered the demo, must have been really proud.

I personally loved the new Claw logo. I personally think that it caught the grimness of the band. It’s definitely eviler and desecrating compared to the old 2007 logo. The old logo reminded me of a logo used by a death metal band from South America, unfortunately I forgot the name of the band. The fact that the logo was nicely designed in symmetry and was colored white rather than the typical black, made it more captivating, if I may say so. Let us examine the picture on the cover. The cover depicted a grayscale photo of a dusky, foggy and yet very icy mountain top complete with its dry and rather pale forestry gloominess. The fact that the mountain was kind of covered with snow was a bit a turning off switch for me since there are no icy mountains in Malaysia. Or is it me being bad in geography? This is not Norway mates. Again, this was also, to my eyes, a perfect illustration and representation of the band’s style of music. The cover was indeed very atmospheric. The perfect mishmash of dark, cold and gloomy atmosphere made it to be as one of the most perfect album cover in 2009, well at least for me if we were to exclude the snow.

Get in touch with Claw: http://claw-kvlt.blogspot.com/