Review Summary: SAGURU is well executed stuff, relentless, and all at once slightly catchy and 'techny'. Therefore, UNDERGOD beyond question is not "UNDERDOG" among any other brutal death acts!
Whoever plans to give Undergod's
Saguru a listen, do not be fooled around by the intro. It might be a bit confusing at first. The intro is what people commonly could find it in jazz fusion, local traditional-folk music, or whatever people say! Many South East Asia metal bands have been choosing this approach. It seems like they try hard to identify themselves among countless metal acts out there from all-over the world. So, putting own cultural spin to the album is quite understandable, at least whoever listens to the album for the first time will have a little clue regarding where the band come from. However, aside from kinda local and folk-
ish intro,
Saguru is just as brutal as hell!
Undergod cited their influences such as Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Deicide and even their compatriot Jasad. Within 29 minutes of music,
Saguru offers a relentless brutal death. However, brutality level is not as intense as Jasad's
Annihilate The Enemy. In a few songs, there're some groove parts, a bit melodic solos, and catchy moments that possibly should be its strength and all at once weakness. As strength,
Saguru is more acceptable by larger audience, not only brutal death fans but also other genres in range of extreme metal stylistic. As the weakness, brutal death fans who love the highest level of brutality, perhaps would suppose the groovy and catchy elements are little disgrace for such sub-genre. Nonetheless, this aspect is definitely debatable.
Overall,
Saguru is well executed brutal death stuff. It's pretty fair to say that
Saguru is Undergod's first prime. Each member has played at appropriate capability and high passionate. Vocally, Kinoy Bacok did fit to such extreme and brutal music. His vocalizing is; from mid-ranged pitch delivery to low, using both growl and guttural style. Beside that, in a few parts the listener is also able to hear his dark-heavier vocals with somewhat clean articulation. The bass play is pretty audible and well mixed. The drumming also deserves appreciation. Abas (aka Van Baz) threw down sufficiently blast-beats and sometimes a bit hyper. He also threw down nice fills here and there.
While his band-mates did a good job, guitarist Said Zabid also had real significant contribution to the album. He played solid, nice yet energetic riffs. His playing style tended the more 'techny' death. However, in such less complex composition, it's not enough to put
Saguru in such sub-genre. The album is just a surprisingly excellent brutal death debut! Each song has linear quality, so it is hard to mention any highlight. Also,
Saguru has no any significant flaw. Listening to it twice or more definitely works for people who want to differentiate each song of the album. Beside its pretty polished production,
Saguru well balances. It provides no overused or bored breakdown and hyper-blast drumming. Also, there is no wasted and overused chugging.
Despite the cover art is so gory, lyrical theme is not merely about blood and killing. Instead, it's also about common social life experience.
Kudak-Kadek for instance, is about a well educated man but a scoundrel. Song
Si Madu Kampak is about woman who prostitutes herself for a simply matter of economics reason. The only aspect to concern about, possibly it's the approach where they seem to be a more local oriented - West Java, not national - Indonesia, or even wider - global world. This is just because of all song and title was not even written in Indonesian, even less English! The entire album is sung in local Sunda language - one of hundreds local languages of Indonesian archipelago. It's not a surprise if more than seventy percent of Indonesian will not understand what exactly song titles and lyrics mean.
However, this such approach also has blessing in disguise. With their mother tongue language, those guys are able to express themselves and write the lyrics deeply, freely, simple but smart, or even emotional if they want. Despite most people won't understand (including me) the lyrics on their CD's booklet. Sometimes this approach is better, rather than writing the lyrics in English but grammatically error, shallow or superficial wording, ridiculous lyrics with dumb title - just because of wrong choice of dictions. There it is the bright side! However, lyrical approach does not really matter whether in English, Indonesian, or Sundanese, but good music is what people always seek for and appreciate. Above all, music is always global language, isn't it?
