Jasad
Annihilate The Enemy

I know, I've disappointed you; I had promised to present you, for Christmas Day, one of the worst abortions of Brutal Death Metal, a horrible album, an album that would make Bleeding Fetus Organs, Catasexual Urge Motivation, Pustulated, and, why not, even Vaginal Injury From Insertion Of Foreign Objects shiver. Instead, I have come up only with Jasad. But after racking my brain in embarrassment over the choice of the worst album, I glanced at the shelves and saw that I have reviewed almost every album in my possession except "Annihilate The Enemy." This was a serious omission, and I had to take action.

The Jasad are a strange band; they are strange because they hail from Indonesia (like Condemned and many others), they are strange because they have a very personal style. They are strange because no one considers them great, yet everyone has heard of them (in certain circles...). Jasad are indeed strange. They have a concept all their own, a meticulously crafted booklet, and it's unclear where they got the money. Jasad have Jon Zig design their cover but they tell him what he needs to draw. Jasad also write some lyrics in their native language.

Anafores aside, when you put "Annihilate The Enemy" in the stereo, something happens; the sound is hyper-compressed, filtered dirty, like dear "Effigy Of The Forgotten." The atmospheres, not at all reassuring. These four Malaysian pirates have made strides; they've come from an anonymous disc like "Witness Of Perfect Torture" to one decidedly more substantial and challenging. It is true that the album came out in 2005, when revolutions in Brutal had mostly ended; there were those who invented Slam, those who deprecated it, those who recovered it, and those who transformed it. And Jasad, whether due to geographical difficulties or stylistic choice, pull themselves out of it. What they do is a work of pure Brutal Death Metal heavily indebted to Deeds OF Flesh and Suffocation.

Strange, you might think, considering that the groups I mentioned represent two schools, if not adversarial, certainly different; but it's not so strange if you think about what can come out of the violence of the former combined with the rationality of the latter.

The album opens with the beautiful "Ranking The Weak", certainly one of the most representative pieces of the entire work; powerful riffing, varied but never out of place, sometimes technical, most of the time very, very pounding. The rhythm section is more refined and presents subtleties that won't go unnoticed by more attentive listeners. The bass, as expected from a production that favors low tones, is always present and clearly audible; the vocals, very raw.

Ferocious accelerations, then slow downs, ruthless, determined to hurt; the songs are composed with competence and demonstrate good studio work that is not taken for granted by a band that has only reached their second release. Impossible not to mention "Getis Jang Getis", in my opinion the best of the album; the countertimes are truly worthy of the best drummers, the slowdowns divide it into "functional units" with truly grandiose impact. Not to forget that even pure devastation never takes a back seat. "Pathetic Unidentified Obsession" also deserves a few lines, a track that, although more banal, really hits hard.

But up to this point, I've painted you a Brutal cd like any other; instead "Annihilate The Enemy" has something different; the mood and the lyrics. By leafing through the booklet, you can understand what I'm talking about; the lyrics are simple, perhaps adolescent, but you can feel they are heartfelt and sincere. And this is a bit unsettling. The Gore element, as the genre's standards impose, is present but in a measured quantity that removes any carnival air from the cd's Mood: it talks about death in a way very close to everyday life, indeed, it starts from everyday life to bring out lyrics that talk about death. And this is a bit fascinating; it is precisely this morbid alternation of naive, almost desperate visions of normal life and paroxysmal desires for revenge that makes Jasad's album unique. Because after reading the lyrics, you understand what could not be understood from the sound; it is not all stage fiction. So much so that the least successful parts are precisely those kitsch flourishes that the singer sticks on top, his wanting at all costs to show that he too can write disgusting verses; what he indeed knows how to do well is convey his frustrations with the sinister simplicity of genuine emotions.

Apart from that, the LP is a completely normal good Brutal album; the tracks, not all equally successful, are listenable but nothing more. Simply, more than focusing purely on the musical aspect, I considered it appropriate to dwell on the emotional one.

"Annihilate The Enemy" is a decently inspired album that profiles a rosy future for the four Indonesians; the road to travel is not long and with a little more effort I am sure these guys can really do a lot. Even if it does not deserve the highest marks, this album is, in my opinion, much more expressive than it might seem at first listen. An album that leaves no ray of light and positions itself in a very different perspective from those of traditional Brutal.