1000 THOUGHTS OF VIOLENCE

First off, let me tell you one thing: Kekal is one of the most original and most innovative metal bands ever exist on the current underground scene but still yet uncovered! I'm not trying to hype this band out of their place, this is my humble and honest opinion. And this album only strengthen my views about Kekal. A GREAT band that is.

It took about 10 spins for me to start writing this review, and man, yet I still hear new things coming out from their songs. They are very progressive, musically complex and have lots of amazing, original riffs and twisted chords. Generally, "1000 Thoughts of Violence" is an extreme presentation of progressive/avantgarde metal, mixed by nasty blastbeats and technically brutal riffing. This album brings us a balance of brutality, intensity, great groove (yes, THAT Kekal groove we all know and love!), dark atmosphere, strong melody and harmony.

The vocals are back to the days of "Embrace The Dead" era, with typical Kekal screams, screeches, growls, shouts, and operatic clean male and clean female singing. Musically, Kekal still manages to keep their own trademark for good but the band has progressed very very far after the split CD (Chaos & Warfare). What we can hear today are mature traditional progressive rock/metal elements, avantgarde elements (hip-hop beats, drum n bass, jazz, analog synths, world ambient groove), and technically advanced theories of fusion. If you need comparation with their older albums, I can describe "1000 Thoughts of Violence" as a heavy progression of "Embrace The Dead" album with the addition of modern avantgarde elements. The music, while brutal, is not as agressive and angry as "The Painful Experience". This album no longer has many bright and thrashy power-metal riffs as used on "The Painful..." CD. In other words, the atmosphere is darker and colder with tremolo riffing as a dominant factor. Also gone is the raw and muddy guitar production of "The Painful Experience". "1000 Thoughts of Violence" has some good tone of crunchy walls of guitars backed up with realistic drum sound. The best production Kekal ever achieves.

What makes this album very interesting?

Let me describe it, Theoretically:

CHORDS: Kekal uses so many unusual, 'crazy' chords here (check out those VOIVOD chords if you wants to know what 'crazy' chords mean), and it's very difficult if someone wants to cover their songs because of these unusual chords alone. These original insane chords won't make you bored, even you play it so many times (I have played it more than 10 times now and I'm not bored with it yet). Not to mention the awesome key-changes that are rarely used by average metal bands.

RHYTHMS: The drum patterns are completely INSANE!!! You have it all: Cymbal-circus, odd-time signature carnival, unexpected meter and tempo-changes, difficult syncopations, double-kick madness and catastrophic hyperblastbeats!! You can hear the kick drums doing triplets while the hihat and cymbals in standard 16 or 32 beats.

MELODY LAYERS: Kekal is widely known (and respected) for using their own unique IRON-MAIDENsque melody layers, and the harmonizations of these layers. They are also used in this album, if the chords (the main riffs) are doing some jazzy-weird thing, the melodies doesn't get stuck with it. The layers are both distorted and clean. There are some melody layers done in harmonics! This means they harmonizing guitar harmonics!

AVANTGARDE ELEMENTS: Kekal do use non-metal elements to make interesting and original music. These elements are rarely used in heavy metal nowadays but have been known quite well within the mainstream music scene because of the electronica revolution in the mid 90s. I'm not saying that Kekal has gone 'trendy' because they use drum-loops, samples, ambient noises and analog synthesizers (and messing them to create hip-hop, drum n bass, ambient, or even acid jazz bits in the middle of their songs). Don't get me wrong, these elements are used only for the 'spices' and not really 'big' enough. Extreme metal is still very dominant in Kekal's music. They also used some sorts of guitar effects to create some moody, almost psychedelic ambience.

SOLO GUITARS: There are solo guitars on most of the songs, of course. Once again, Kekal is known for creating interesting solo guitars and this time they even make more interesting and original solos. Main lead guitarist Leo didn't perform with the band for this album, but Jeff did very good solos too. Not guitar-hero lightning fast solos of course, but they are precised, classy, fast, controlled solos with his own original scales and melody-lines. Listen to the good solos on songs like "Artifacts of Modern Insanity", "Vox Diaboli", the middle clean solo on "Beyond Numerical Reasons" and the intro solo to "In Continuum".

BASS GUITARS: The bass are more and more involved in this album, and I hear many good basslines that are independently picked without following the same patterns and notes of the guitar riffs. Listen to the melody basslines on the middle prog/fusion interlude of "Vox Diaboli". The bass tone is also very good, tight but not intersect with the guitar sound.

RIFFS: The riffs are never boring. You get typical tremolo black metal riffing, power metal riffs, brutal thrashy death riffs, and some progressive, acrobatic technical metal riffs.

What makes them very interesting is in fact that Kekal can mix all above elements into one solid, cohesive music. They KNOW exactly about theories of fusion. Perfect. For me, "1000 Thoughts of Violence" is one of the best extreme metal albums in 2003.

Recommended for fans of: SIGH, BORKNAGAR, EMPEROR, VOIVOD, EPHEL DUATH, ACRTURUS & avantgarde-progressive metal in general.

When my sister and I were children, our parents would take us for weekend walks in nearby woodland. We would stroll through dells lined with bluebells, around natural orchards of crab apple trees and across cuckoo haunted meadows. When we came to a fork or a crossroad in the path, my dad would flip a coin to help decide which way to go next. Eventually though, we would always come back along the same path without ever seeming to get lost. Listening to Kekal's album is a bit like my childhood memories of these walks. With Kekal we encounter a variety of light, bright jazzy areas, compelling soundscapes and surprising time signatures, but we know that we will usually return to the familiar section of thrash metal with repetitive guitar and Scott Travis-style drums.

Kekal use a combination of aggressive vocals with the aforementioned thrash metal devices and melodic voices with equally melodious rock guitar. In jazz mode they remind me of Black Sabbath on Planet Caravan and, at times, the vocals sound like Russell Mael of Sparks. On other occasions the group echo the more contemporary Cave-In. The drummer is no fool and is capable of interesting drum-parts. But, whereas Faith No More and Dream Theater hit the mark with this fusing of thrash and melody, Kekal on 1000 Thoughts of Violence do not quite succeed. The reason is because, to a traditional progressive rock fan like me, they fall uncomfortably between the two camps - erring too much on the thrash metal side which is disproportionately the larger and inferior. Taking into account the light and shade aspect, the thrash is still in need of severe editing, while the progressive, 'conventional' heavy rock and experimentation needs expanding.

Kekal are to be commended for their willingness to experiment and to merge a delicate jazz playing with heavy rock. Like my mother and father many years ago, they took me on a fascinating journey with many memorable experiences. Just one last thing though gentlemen ? May I suggest that you change the album title to 1000 Thoughts of Tranquillity.