Side A of the Cassette:
The opening track 'Rotting Youth' shows the listener what to expect. Brutal Black Metal from these young guys hailing from Indonesia.
I was skeptical at first about how good this would be as my friend was introducing this band to me. This is a cassette by the way they don't have any CDs out. This was the reason why I put off getting this album in the first place and had to wait for the 2nd shipment to come in. But black vocals and growled vocals and 3...YES 3 female vocalists, Julie, Hana, and Vera makes this album a worthy listen. This shows what 4 talented guys with a drum machine can churn out. Although the drumming is provided by a drum machine, I don't think anyone can differentiate without being told first. Every song packs Melody with Brutality...step back Horde, step back Emperor, Step back Old Man's Child, here is Kekal...the band worth looking out for.
'Armageddon' is my personal favorite, it has heavy black metal with melodic female vocals. It starts off with 2 beats of the percussion, then the brutality comes in...growled "Deceiver of this world beware, tremble in your heart, you're scared" with the black vocal "New world order. all shall fall, But the Armies of God stand tall" bold up front lyrics combine with brutality to make this album a MUST in every metalhead out there. Even those who don't buy cassettes won't regret buying this album, I don't. The first female vocals of the whole album come in here, it is very heavenly : "When God destroy all heavens, No star will be reserved" "Fire came down from Heaven, No evil thing shall survive" Every female vocalist on this album packs a punch with their angelic voices (personally I would love to meet the owners of these voices) It consists of a powerful solo which reminds me of Old Man's Child!
"Spirits" is a song about unblack metal and it starts off with atmospheric keyboards and the guitar enter in a slow fashion. Then the beat is picked and the songs transform into a fast heavy black metal track. 'Praise Him who conquer death, Praise him who defeat satan' 'Jesus Christ who destroyed satan's head, crush his ugly head, VICTORY'
"Deceived Minds" tells a story of a lifelong worship of wrong idols, something very common in the Muslim country of Indonesia where black magic is practiced in many tribes in the rural areas. Brutal guitars kicks off the track, dominated mainly by unblack vocal and HEAVY as a ton of bricks and FAST as lightning guitars. Black shrieks can be found heavily utilized on this tracks.
"The Conversion" is based on a true story, of 1 or more of the members of Kekal. It speaks of the how a person is indoctrinated since young on how 'bad' and 'evil' Christianity is. How he is found by Christ and comes to know the light. The highlight of this song is not the unblack vocals or brutality but the female vocals. 'Satan never fulfilled his promise to me, he just inverts all the truth' 'Now i have a chance to live eternally' 'In Christ, my soul has been freed, has been freed'
Now on to side B of the cassette: "Behind those Images" very heavy and brutal black metal. Packs tons of melody which I really love.
'Reality' is brutal stuff but I guess Kekal has some learning to do about Death Metal in this particular track. Heavy black vocals are used occasionally on this track...leaning more towards the death growl.
'Escaping Eternal Suffering' mostly spoken male vocals. With the chorus sung with clean vocal, male that is.
'A Day The Hatred Died' truthful song about how corrupted this world is. Melodious guitars are the focus of this track, AND YES you can finally hear the bass clearly on this track!!!! A great solo dominates the ending making me hope that the song lasted longer.
The grand finale is "My Eternal Lover". It's all melody here...no blast beats no intense riffs, just doomy atmospheric keyboards with clean guitars with no distortions, only angelic, mesmerizing female vocals. You can differentiate the 3 female vocalists on this tracks. The female vocalist that I love is the one that sings "Your Precious Blood washes away the sin"
A lot of blast beats are found in this album. Production is not top notch some bad patches in the mixing. The 'Eternal Lover' has some distortion, that I would rather see on other tracks than this particular track. But you will be pleasantly surprised by this Indonesian Black Metal band!
8/10
Other Staff Member Ratings
Grindboy: 9/10
Other coverage for this album
HM Magazine #76Reviewed by Doug Van PeltWhoa! Indonesia has attacked and will slay the black metal scene with this group! Kekal's Beyond The Glimpse Of Dreams is just a full-on blitzkrieg of flying blast beats, killer guitars, and some of that howling, screaching black metal vocals. Someone told me today that this band is the only other band that can hang with the likes of Horde - secular or Christian. With this prolific playing and…The Phantom Tollbooth 1999Reviewed by Chris KingBlack metal, despite its inherent ugliness, can be very beautiful, powerful, and moving music, and this young band from Indonesia accomplish the task. Kekal have created an original alloy of thrash and classic metal with a base of mostly black metal. Their songs are well developed without being laboriously long or degenerating into tiresome repetition. A variety of vocal styles are utilized, from…Dead Zine 1998Reviewed by FletchAlthough I think this cd is a small step above some other Christian black metal, I think this band needs some vocal work and a drummer. The vocals are just really unprofessional. They sound like someone who has no business on a microphone trying to act like he can sing. Don't be fooled. Plus, they use a drum machine on this cd. Although it's not terribly obvious, it is lame. Some guitar work…Dead Zine 1998Reviewed by D_ListerOk let me clear this up. Yes Kekal's Beyond the Glimpse of Dreams was reviewed by HadeSlayeR awhile back, but that was the cassette version. At that time there were no thoughts of making a CD version of this music at all. However, the band has indeed remastered the tracks, and come out with a CD version of their efforts. This review is on the CD version of their album, as the cassette version has…Similar sounding releases
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