Album: Eye Cry
Band: SiksaKubur
Label: Rottrevore Records
Release: 2003

Track Listing:
1. Renounce Me
2. Destitusi Menuju Mati
3. I am The Worst
4. Dunia Menjerat
5. Reborn for Destination
6. Pasukan Jiwa Terbelakang
7. Terlahir Sampah
8. Parade Luka
9. Evil Beside Us
10. 180898

Background
SiksaKubur has been around since 1996 with the first direction praising early Sepultura. As the time goes the band carry on the journey with various subgenres experimentation including death metal, grindcore and such brutal stuff. After Japra, the throaty voices joined, SiksaKubur has redefined their sound signature as wicked mixtures of thrash metal badass voice and technical death metal offering twisting melodies and ear-rupturing complex drumworks analogous to Sceptic, Sympathy, All Shall Perish, Psycroptic and alike.
 
Musicianship
One of attractive offering this band has is the vocal quality performed by Japra. He’s voices reminiscent of Max Cavalera from Soulfly/early Sepultura. The powerful words of thrash metal pattern as well as English pronunciation (in some English songs) erupted from his throat are comparable to world class performer.

The founder of the band, Gorust, man I couldn’t imagine how busy he do it behind the drumkits. The dissimilarity is the king. He constantly changes the drum pattern in almost every few bars of the song with different powerful steady snare punch, double-toms hits pattern and cymbals arrangement swabs with wicked irregular tempos and stable double bass drum kicks without losing the energy in the whole songs. Certainly he’s the principal brute to keep the song rhythm in its track.

The guitar sound of choice shows the maturity of SiksaKubur guitarist, Andre, to present audience pleasing distortion tones without excessive nor too low level matched perfectly with his skill and mastery of he’s instrument to perform acrobatic low string tunes with bunch of palm-muting and artificial harmonics in between. He’s blatantly melodic harmonic solos and spicy sound effect on some songs undoubtedly established SiksaKubur as one of excellent technical death metal band around.

I couldn’t be happier listening to this record where the bass sound was so awesome. All the low rumble tones produced from thunderous bass guitar axe played by Yudi were heard and felt. The bass player performance was rapid and precise yet defined clearly as counterpart of the song grooves build by other members.

Songwriting
Honestly I was a bit skeptical when hearing the opening part of the first track, Renounce Me, which incorporating female choir voices and keyboards as the intro. Ah, this must be Scandinavian black/speed metal again. Nope! It’s only the intro. And what happened next was blasting brutal grooves guaranteed to punch your eardrums with metal vibes through the veins with enjoyable metal tunes performed equally well between four member of the band.

The songwriting capabilities demonstrated by SiksaKubur is exceptional. Heavy distorted guitar riff accompanied by quick response bass lines and chaotic drumworks build song pattern that is so dynamic and exciting. Every song structured more than three melodious and vicious metal patterns style within. Interesting parts such as the solo executed well using clean amp setting on “I am The Worst” as well as the classic harmonic bass and guitar intro on “Pasukan Jiwa Terbelakang” which also incorporating classic metal solos with classy bent guitar tailing sound. A stereo panning of guitar break on “Reborn for Destination” is another big plus.

Production
To us, this is indie label production with professional recording quality. The low and high tones are balanced. Noise floor is virtually absent. The guitar and bass sound are adequate with plenty of gain without clipping or crackling. The drum snare/toms punching with intense energy as booming as double bass drum kicks.

The only minor glitch is the noise produced as the short tail of guitar ringing part after "Renounce Me" intro; it could be from distortion box or amp model. Nevertheless, you might not find that to be disturbing on your common stereo system. If I could state personal taste here, the hi-hat and cymbals could be crispier, but that might be sound of choice of the band and sound engineer to prefer dark percussions character.

Thanks to Yuda-recording engineer, Dadi Bir-mixing engineer, and all the people in K studio and Dialog mastering studio, we could hear what the metal should sounded from an indie label band.

Summary
Skillful musicianship and dazzling technical mastery wrapped with quality production. What are you waiting for? Go download the samples to convince the shit we’ve spoken. Better yet, run down nearest distros or contact Rottrevore Records to torture your soul to get orgasmic listening pleasure with this graveyard tormentor. Editor recommended.

Score
Musicianship: ***** (5 of 5)
Songwriting: ***** (5 of 5)
Production: ***** (5 of 5).

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