I've already finished listening to Killharmonic third album, the latest album called
Human Race Disgrace (2010). My impression, the album is good, almost great! However after listening to their new sound, I miss their early two album style. So why in this occasion, I look back to their old stuff and give you the words about
Hatred Diminished In Dismembered Head (2002).
The album contains eight tracks with total duration 30s-minutes of music. All tracks bring us ferocious harmony and brutal aggressive sound. And you'll also find plenty awesome guitar riff and killer rhythm in each track of the album. Their solo guitar part will punch and slam you in the face. I must admit, the wild and twisting guitar part is the biggest factor that makes this album special. Killharmonic has thrown the technical and unique element to the songs pattern. Sometimes they composed it in smart and complex way, the characteristic that we recognize as progressive or technical death. If we compared Killharmonic to their fellow Indonesian death band
Jasad, I’d realize that Killharmonic is less brutal. In the other side, with mainstream style of brutal death such fast double bass and drum kicks and hyperblast hitting drums, and guitar bass keeping the balance for their fierce and cruel solid sound, vocals part deserve a little more higher credit. The vocals actually use low growl, middle guttural singing, yet sometimes use the highest pitch of fury scream a la old school thrash vocals - it pretty fits to their musical concept.
The only annoying thing about this album is the poor recording quality. Yes, that's right they have great songs composition and great musicianship. However, a better recording production and great talented sound engineer is a must if you want to produce somewhat we call classic album. Hmm, whenever I think back again, this was the real classic demon of indie-production In Indonesia in early 90s until early 2000s, especially for small town like
Kediri (East Java) where Killharmonic guys base themselves. If Killharmonic based in big city such Jakarta or Bandung when working on this material album, and they found one of a few better indie-studio, I was sure this album should be classic. If it wasn't, at least the album should be equal in sound quality with
Back to Vengeance (2002) of Siksakubur (Jakarta) and
Witness of Perfect Torture (2001) of Jasad (Bandung).
My conclusion, the album is fairly great. I always say to my self; forget about their poor recording quality, just enjoy their killer raw and typically noisy live track recording sound! I'm sure this is one of my reasons to look back this old crazy stuff. Although
Human Race Disgrace has much better recording quality rather than its predecessors, I defend that
Hatred Diminished In Dismembered Head is still their best studio album to date.
