Kilat – Tirai Niskala.
 "Blistering, disgusting, vile, putrid audio violence, and that's the highest compliment"

Review by Mark J.

Tirai Niskala is blistering, disgusting, vile, putrid audio violence, and that's the highest compliment. Melbourne's Kilat have spent the years since Rantai Penjinak touring hard across Australia, New Zealand and Asia, and it shows. This is a band that has locked in, and the second record hits harder and goes deeper than the debut.

The skeleton is still raw black metal. You can hear Darkthrone's cold tremolo and Emperor's sense of scale, but this trio has no bass, and Ben Andrews runs his guitar through multiple amps/outputs at once, so the wall of sound is thicker than any second-wave pastiche. Rama Parwata, also the drummer behind Whitehorse's sludge grind, blasts in waves you feel in your chest. Karina Utomo's psychogenic vocals sit in the middle of it all, hypnotic and chant-like at times and far from a standard shriek. You can hear High Tension and Rinuwat in her phrasing slightly, but as the Hellraiser quote goes  "We have such sights to show you!". After years of watching her range develop across various bands, this record is where she gets to show all of it. She's one of the best metal vocalists going right now. Try to prove otherwise.

Opener "Suwung Mahākāśa/Netraning Langit" runs 6:44 and plays like one of those old horror films where spirits tear out of a vessel and wreck everything in reach. A dark ambient score creeps in with thunder underneath, and for nearly two minutes your nerves are shot. Noise rises, demonic low vocals and drums slink in, and the ritual starts. They don't launch into amphetamine tempo. They keep building a monument to darkness, then drop into a maelstrom of nasty riffs and a thick tone that suffocates. And that's only the opener.

Photo by the incredible https://www.instagram.com/e.w.sfilm_shotaro/

"Saptapratala" arrives with no warning and a near-grindcore, powerviolence take on black metal. Andrews channels earthquake-sized dual tones through those amps until it sounds like three wizard guitarists and a bassist with the speed and precision of King ov Hell or Jo Bench. The warped vocal-focused midsection is phenomenal. "Lintang Tumiba" is both grotesque and gorgeous, with tempo shifts that keep your nervous system twitching, and from 3:44 it goes full battering ram, with as much Bathory as early Emperor and Darkthrone.

"Naga Siluman" is the breather, if you can call it that. It's a noisy, borderline industrial dark ambient piece that's pure joy on headphones, and the subtle layering is where you realise this isn't meat-and-potatoes throw-together stuff. "Antaraning Jagat", the pre-release focus track, was a wise pick. It opens with fuzzy, crust-edged fury and one of Rama's most primal drum performances, then hammers until the end with a stormy groove like a giant robot flattening a city. "Macan Agni" is moodier and doomier, with Karina's voice working as an instrument, like thunderous seas wearing down shoreline rock, before a quiet passage leads back into the vitriol.

"Tejaning Bantala" is the one that takes you into the middle of a tornado. There's an echo, almost surround-sound quality to it, and around the two-minute mark, a section arrives that sounds like a live demonic possession, a hornets' nest in your head. The nearly eight-minute track flies by, ending in a warped drone wonderland that leads into the resplendent closer, "Mandrageni", every bit as unhinged as the opener. Listen closely for the ingenious drum work and shrewd tempo changes, then let the folk-tinged, reflective parts and the Armageddon finale sink in. Track order matters on a record like this, and nothing here is filler.

Photo by the magnificent https://www.instagram.com/bagustwn

Jason Fuller recorded it at Goatsound, Xavier Irvine mixed it, and James Plotkin mastered it. Plotkin keeps the low-end weight and the top-end scrape without turning it to mud. It's still raw, and it's abrasive on purpose, but there's clarity in the chaos. And the album sounds astonishing.

Killer photo by https://www.instagram.com/blackenedlights.photography/

These three are no black metal tourists. Their backgrounds run through hardcore, sludge, noise and experimental metal, with Andrews' MY DISCO work bleeding into the drone and noise passages. Javanese and Balinese cosmology shapes the titles, the mood, and the sense that the music is trying to open something up rather than just attack. They're also free of the racist, low-IQ filth that follows black metal around, which matters.

Photo by: the amazing https://www.instagram.com/photoyunist

On record, it already feels like a nightmarish place you don't want to leave. Live, it must be punishing. Not a single dip across eight tracks. For me, one of the best Australian extreme releases, full stop.

Out now:

Tirai Niskala: https://kilat.bandcamp.com/album/tirai-niskala

via:

https://www.disdain-records.com/product/kilat-tirai-niskala-vinyl-pre-order

and

https://wvsorcerer.bandcamp.com/album/tirai-niskala

Support this amazing band:

https://www.instagram.com/kilatbesihitam/

https://kilat.bandcamp.com/

Deep-dive interview coming up before the end of the year, guaranteed to be one of the year's best; same as the album!

Don't miss the launch shows: