Siksakubur is a brutal death metal band from Indonesia, and I think this is a re-release of their demo from 2000. The most immediate frame of reference I could think of while listening to this was Canada’s Hidden Pride. But I doubt that many of you would have heard of them, so let me say that Siksakubur’s music is very much Suffocation influenced, has a perfect unpolished, sound. It is interesting enough to have kept a position reserved for it on my play list ever since it arrived.
The musicianship is good, the synchronization between guitar string and drum skin of a high order and amateurishness kept to a minimum. This is kind of surprising if you look at the band photo at the back of the CD cover. I’ll be surprised if any of those guys (at least when the photos were taken) are above 18 or 20. The vocals sound very matured, though they seem to have some effects added like a bit of echo and reverb making it sound more drawn out. I think they have used a pitchshifter, too. The music isn’t as brutal as some of the other bands out there, mostly for the reason that the drummer doesn’t rely too much on the blastbeats and neither is the riffing ultra-fast. But as I said before, all the songs are interesting and that in itself is no small feat. The first two songs have some good melodic riffs while the rest of the songs concentrate on the brutality. The bass work is pretty good, you can hear the bassist doing little runs in almost all the songs. The nice, clear sound he has helps too. My favorite songs on this would be “Into Your Sickening Intestines” and “Decayed Flesh.”