KEKAL Completes Work On New Album

Indonesian metal band KEKAL has completed work on its new album, "Audible Minority".

According to a press release, "the title 'Audible Minority' is based to the fact that the music on the album has mapped itself into the extreme minority status; something beyond recognition of the musical norms. 'Audible Minority' is a stateless, nameless, and label-less manifesto made from all the bitterness and pain. The album that is entirely bleak, gloom and dark.

"Almost two years in the making, 'Audible Minority' has been constructed during various personal events in life. It all began in September 2006, before the release of 'The Habit of Fire', and continued to shape itself up until May 2008."

Commented KEKAL guitarist/vocalist Jeff Arwadi: "'Audible Minority' is a very difficult album for me, both technically as well as emotionally, because I had to use many different DAW programs, different places and different computers to record as well, even within one session/one song. There are lots of technical challenges and headaches (literal headaches). Emotionally, all those 'drifting' atmopshere made me feel like a nomad; taken-out-of-home and exiled. The good thing is that I didn't set-up any deadline, so let the music finishes itself.

"To be honest, I don't see 'Audible Minority' as a complete album, I see it as a continuing process, or as a bridge to the future unknown. This is an album which ends with a triple dots, not with a period. It is like snapshots of certain moments within a dark journey, and the journey continues. All of the band members were having their own personal struggles in life when the songwriting started, and it continued as the music shaped itself. Most of the (limited) communications between me and other members at that time were never about discussing the music, but all about sharing our own problems. I had to deal with all the songwriting and recording on my own this time, because of the geographical reasons as I was moving to a different country. There were times I thought that it was impossible to finish the album myself, and even there were times I thought about quitting the band as I was not having a good time working on this album. All I felt was the overwhelming sorrow, but I could not stop doing it. Making music is the only therapeutic way, to ease myself from the pain.

"The main concept of 'Audible Minority' is all about perseverance and facing the life itself. Musically, it turned out to be a very dark, low-key and introspective album ever made under the name of KEKAL. Be forwarned: Don't expect yourself to bang your head while listening to 'Audible Minority'. There are traces of extreme-metal at some points, but they collide with extreme electronic elements (with the use of multilayered power electronics, Moog synths and theremin) as well as dark, stripped-down emotional jazz and blues. I don't want to call this album 'experimental' or 'progressive,' I prefer to call this 'expressional.'"

"Audible Minority" track listing:

01. The Vampire Song
02. Conditional Destiny
03. Against
04. Ceasefire Negative
05. Between Us
06. For The Greater Good and Evil
07. Narrow Avenue
08. Virtue of Perseverance
09. Shuffling Biorhythms
10. All That Matters
11. Locust (A-HA cover)

Says the band: "First eight tracks will be available for FREE DOWNLOAD (yes, no kidding, free download) with the option of paying some small donation. However, the 'official,' label-released versions (CD and digital) will have all 11 tracks plus some possible extras. After some discussion with the record label who will release the official version (CD and digital),we agree to push the release date to December 2008."

For more information, visit www.kekal.org.

"Narrow Avenue" video: