An anachronistic fusion of droniest doom metal with Southeast Asian sounds and traditions. Check. One track featuring Senyawa's Rully Shabara on guest vocals. Check. A nontypical amazing artwork presented on a gatefold cover with a gold foil logo and on a 30 x 90 cm panorama poster. Double-check. Beautiful coloured vinyl. Check.
This must be a WV Sorcerer release, right? - No, astonishingly Rinuwat's "Dua Naga" came out via Heavy Machinery Records late in 2021. But it is now distributed by WV Sorcerer Productions and it's a match that indeed couldn't possibly fit any better!
RINUWAT - Dua Naga (gold vinyl LP) (2021)
The first stephenomalleyan, earth-shattering guitar notes immediately prepare you for a wall of thick sludge to set in... but then the opener "Sewu" does something completely different and turns into a deep incantation of ambient noises and Javanese gamelan gong music. Above the droning sound singer Karina Utomo recites mantras, which seem steeped in secret ancient wisdom and are performed in such a frightening manner, you believe they were designed to scare away evil demons.
And yet after these first five minutes Utomo has only given us a glimpse of her full range. Her terrifying exorcising extreme vocals on this record are delivered with such a genuine and profound conviction that I don't even want to classify them as death or black metal, because they evoke a different, somehow even more primal feeling than that.
The trio of Rinuwat is completed by Rama Parwata, who's not only an incredibly gifted rock drummer, but also responsible for the traditional instrumentation of reyong, gong, ceng-ceng, jublang and suling - the whole gamelan tapestry -, as well as producer/guitarist/bassist Mike Deslandes, who adds electronic and massive doom metal elements to this sophisticated yet absolutely ass-kicking and bone-shaking, conceptually and technically outstanding merging of contemporary and timeless sounds. Which I shall just continue to break down track by track:
In "Taring Emas" the band releases its full energy, as riffs, synths, flutes and noises are combined with beats effortlessly shifting from the industrial to the mystical as a perfectly vivid soundtrack to imagine yourself fleeing Utomo's harsh vocals.
"Arawa" introduces a twangy Earth atmosphere and gives us the additional ultra-guttural experimentations of Rully Shabaka, before it explodes into a black metal frenzy and finally rests in an eery silent a place close to Emma Ruth Rundle's "Dowsing Voice".
Side A closes with its longest piece. "Suro" returns to vibration of metal percussion and slowly creeps through the forlorn void with hypnotizing buzz, while the singer proves that she's also capable of guiding us through her adjuring rituals with a clean voice.
On the other side she even emerges with a performance airy and outright beautiful through the verses, wide and epic in the chorus, where she strongly reminds me of Amy Tung Barrysmith (Year Of The Cobra) on "Laknat Bumi".
After this relatively mellow and most straight-forward modern track Rinuwat surely felt the same temptation their listeners do, which is to amp things up with some seriously extreme metal now, but instead they go into the different direction with the interlude nature of "Niskala" - and they still keep building tension for minutes and minutes during the dynamic swellings and soothings of the final song "Nagaloka", before it finally releases its build-up with a crowning symphonic doom noise crescendo and ultimately just ends to soon, leaving me desperately wanting more.
"Dua Naga" is a special gem of doom. Of course there are some parallels to their Indonesian brothers in Senyawa and there's a similar earnestness to be found in funeral doom artists like Loss or Bell Witch. Yet the place from which Rinuwat are coming is truly their own.
It's not only my affinity to the sound of Asian myth in recent years which draws me to this album. Nor is it my love of drone metal. Half of this album doesn't even count as metal.
While both undoubtly play a role, it is that seriously substantial quality rarely heard in metal which above everything else fascinates me here. And the singular presence of Karina Utomo of course.
If you ever get the feeling that you might be on the brink of getting a little bored or at least overfed with doom - this is a captivating meditation on the genre to rekindle the spark. Deep and transcendent. Brutal and mystical. A masterpiece.
And yet after these first five minutes Utomo has only given us a glimpse of her full range. Her terrifying exorcising extreme vocals on this record are delivered with such a genuine and profound conviction that I don't even want to classify them as death or black metal, because they evoke a different, somehow even more primal feeling than that.
The trio of Rinuwat is completed by Rama Parwata, who's not only an incredibly gifted rock drummer, but also responsible for the traditional instrumentation of reyong, gong, ceng-ceng, jublang and suling - the whole gamelan tapestry -, as well as producer/guitarist/bassist Mike Deslandes, who adds electronic and massive doom metal elements to this sophisticated yet absolutely ass-kicking and bone-shaking, conceptually and technically outstanding merging of contemporary and timeless sounds. Which I shall just continue to break down track by track:
In "Taring Emas" the band releases its full energy, as riffs, synths, flutes and noises are combined with beats effortlessly shifting from the industrial to the mystical as a perfectly vivid soundtrack to imagine yourself fleeing Utomo's harsh vocals.
"Arawa" introduces a twangy Earth atmosphere and gives us the additional ultra-guttural experimentations of Rully Shabaka, before it explodes into a black metal frenzy and finally rests in an eery silent a place close to Emma Ruth Rundle's "Dowsing Voice".
Side A closes with its longest piece. "Suro" returns to vibration of metal percussion and slowly creeps through the forlorn void with hypnotizing buzz, while the singer proves that she's also capable of guiding us through her adjuring rituals with a clean voice.
On the other side she even emerges with a performance airy and outright beautiful through the verses, wide and epic in the chorus, where she strongly reminds me of Amy Tung Barrysmith (Year Of The Cobra) on "Laknat Bumi".
After this relatively mellow and most straight-forward modern track Rinuwat surely felt the same temptation their listeners do, which is to amp things up with some seriously extreme metal now, but instead they go into the different direction with the interlude nature of "Niskala" - and they still keep building tension for minutes and minutes during the dynamic swellings and soothings of the final song "Nagaloka", before it finally releases its build-up with a crowning symphonic doom noise crescendo and ultimately just ends to soon, leaving me desperately wanting more.
"Dua Naga" is a special gem of doom. Of course there are some parallels to their Indonesian brothers in Senyawa and there's a similar earnestness to be found in funeral doom artists like Loss or Bell Witch. Yet the place from which Rinuwat are coming is truly their own.
It's not only my affinity to the sound of Asian myth in recent years which draws me to this album. Nor is it my love of drone metal. Half of this album doesn't even count as metal.
While both undoubtly play a role, it is that seriously substantial quality rarely heard in metal which above everything else fascinates me here. And the singular presence of Karina Utomo of course.
If you ever get the feeling that you might be on the brink of getting a little bored or at least overfed with doom - this is a captivating meditation on the genre to rekindle the spark. Deep and transcendent. Brutal and mystical. A masterpiece.
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