REVIEWS
Interviews / articles of KEKAL can be found at: Morbid Noise 'zine #1 (Ina), Megaton 'zine #3(Ina), Mindblast 'zine #4 (Ina), In The Underground 'zine #6 (Mal), Wreathe Of Thorns 'zine #5 (NZ) Screams Of Abel 'zine #15 (US), The Narrow Path 'zine #10 (US), Eccentric 'zine #2(US),
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January '98
Their newest album "Beyond The Glimpse of Dreams" is finally be released on cassette. Recorded at a 16-track studio. Their best effort yet!
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November '97
KEKAL is currently completing the material for the first pro-studio album entitled "Beyond The Glimpse of Dreams". It has 10 songs of brutal, majestic, and melodic extreme metal. The style is a combination of black metal, death metal, and classic metal with darkwave and gothic touch.
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Indonesia's Kekal have released a pretty cool demo which features
Norwegian-influenced black metal shrieks and some menacing, powerful
guitars with some seriously stomping drums keeping up the beat. This
quartet know how to mix it up: blast beats are thrown in between more
melodic moments and the vocals go from spoken to shrieking to growling.
"Rotting Youth" serves as a powerful lead-off to the demo as it
effectively demonstrates the energy Kekal possess, with tracks like
"Armageddon", "Deceived Minds" and "Reality" not far behind. Production
is more than adequate, allowing everything (including the keyboards) to
be heard clearly, lending all the more power to this band. Ten tracks in
total, you receive both quality and quantity in the material featured… I
do hope to hear more from this band in the future as they have something
here worth listening to. -By: Adam Wasylyk (Chronicles of Chaos #29)
4 out of 5
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Whoa! There is some fine music in this issue but this one takes the
prize. Frankly, I didn't know what to expect from a band hailing from
Indonesia… It is obvious from first listen that this is a black metal
album. This bothers the guys in the band a little. They call it extreme
Metal with 80's influences, but it is basically a black metal album.
Unlike many black metal albums, though, there is a great deal of variety
in tempos throughout and a lot of discernable melody. Further, the
riffing and production is of a quality you'd find in death metal, not
black metal. There are also some quiet moments that stand in stark
opposition to the harsher, bludgeon-your-head parts. Especially notable
is the last song, "My Eternal Lover"… I mentioned the 80's influences.
Most notable might be Bathory… I can definitely hear the Trouble
(influences) in a few doomy sections… -Tom Edmonson
(Critical Mass #5)

I received this a few weeks before this issue was finished and was
pleasantly surprised by some killer black metal. KEKAL is a
band comprised of four very talented people and a drum machine (someone
obviously has the talent to program the drum machine). After a few riffs
and beats I was hooked. Sometimes the drums blast, but most times it's
mid- to fast-paced, in your face controlled chaos terrorizing your
speakers. The riffs twist themselves around each other and then beat the
listener about the neck and head. The drums sound good for being
produced by a machine. Actually, the drums sound better on the faster
parts; it's harder to tell that it's a machine. The slower parts are
more obvious. . . Anyway, my favorite songs on this release are
"Armageddon", "Spirits", "Behind Those Images" and "My Eternal Lover".
The latter of the three is a departure from the entire album and a
perfect closer. It's just trance-like guitar played under enchanting
vocals done by THREE great female vocalists, who also utilize their
talents elsewhere on this record. The former three mentioned are raging
black metal hymns that sometimes delve into some totally awesome thrash
parts that have me turning the volume up to ten. Kekal plays perfect
speaker-blaring music. This album is spectacular. The only detracting
point to this is that there is a slight clicking that can be heard in
between songs. It could just be the tape I have. It was a hard choice
between this, ESOTERIC and OFFICIUM TRISTE as my Ice Pick. Regardless,
do check out this band. They had to have worked hard to put this out and
they deserve support. --goden (Eternal Frost #2)
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Kekal puts Indonesia on the black metal map... The music is remarkably
good and packed with intensity and delicate details like female singing
and acoustic oases. Better production and Kekal are ready to conquer the
world. --A.J. Blisten (Scream Magazine #40)
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After the TYRANT album, this tape is certainly the confirmation that
Occidental people should take serious note to the Asian scene and
especially of the Indonesian one... First surprise, there is no drummer
but a drum machine and fortunately its sound is excellent. In fact, the
whole production is excellent and really worth most of the European
average recording. Kekal play a very good orchestral black metal with
some mad accelerations, some atmospheric parts, and the apparition on
some of the songs of a very good female vocalist. The male singing
reminds me a little bit C.O.F., and mixes screams, narration, and
growling vocals. There maybe room for improvement in the guitar solos
but to be honest, I would like to receive tapes like that everyday.
(Decibels Storm Mag. #9)