The miracles still are not banned from this evil world. “The Painful Experience” is already the third release of this Indonesian black metal band Kekal. They were found back in 1995 and released their first demo in 1996. Fleshwalker Records from America even signed the band for “Embrace the Dead” their previous release. And it remains a mystery why I never heard from this band before, but I guess the bad distribution of underground labels could have something to do with that, and that’s a shame. Cause Kekal deserves to be heard in some kind of a way. Their music is pretty hard to be described and that makes this band so unique. Kekal plays a mixture of styles all based on (melodic) black metal. Extreme black metal parts with the intensity of bands as Marduk are easily combined with heavy metal and even some progressive rock influences from bands like Rush or Porcupine Tree.

But also power thrash belongs to their influences in “Like there’s no other Way to go”. The combination of a wide range of influences (even some samples) makes this release interesting, only the vocals are the weak point of this band. In screams they sound as a black metal King Diamond (negative meant) and in the clean passages they sound almost false. And that is shame. Musically Kekal is worth to check out and has one thing that one sees only seldom in this age. Innovative song writing and a refreshing sound. The only thing I am a little worried about is who are going to buy this release. Well, the biography says it all: “The open minded black metal fan”. For more information on how to order contact info@fear-dark.com or check out the Large catalogue in which this one also will be obtained.