Ahad, 7 Jun 2009

THE RAVENS "STORM JAM: PROMO 2000" TAPE



After returned from a trip to Sabah recently, with smile on my face I still couldn’t believe there are people out there seeking for my rehearsal tape. As requested, I brought that mp3 version of the tape to these guy there, who happened to be my old penpal since the 90’s. There is this overwhelming feeling and atmosphere as I gave him this piece of ‘junk’to him. It felt like I’ve just recorded that tape few days ago. It is about this rehearsal I’m going to tell you now….


The tape was the 2nd official tape released by The Ravens. An instrumental pieces of work and was written mostly by me. I remember, those days very clear it was me relentlessly composing the riffs and Yen would added some of his own skills and feels during rehearse. We were very much inspired by Mayhem, Sodom, Dissection on those days. I’m still in learning process to play guitar, while Yen was the best black metal guitarist I’ve ever meet. But the good thing in us, we never wanted to be a clone, we were always tried to do something brutal and original even it is not ‘cool’ to others.

The TDK tape was recorded in M.A Studio by my friend, Malazrif using his mini compo during our rehearsal on 10th June 2000. Defunct and legend, but back in time M.A Studio is our place to throw our crafted anger, joy, frustrations, creativity, experiments and perversions. We recorded 4 songs on that day, it is “Bravery Black Leather”, which I wrote back in June 1999, “Hails Our Death” which I wrote in November 1999 - these two songs actually appeared in my 1st demo, but re-arranged and upgraded its brutality, “Towards The Raventhrone”  I wrote in April 2000 and a cover of SODOM’S “Tombstone”. All blasted by necro zyklonic drums and guitar at its best. The true underground way…. At least, to my opinion. For your information, Samsul also known as Zirkelloch from Singaporean Kibosh Sybil Kismet (KSK) an old Doom Black metal band, done all the graphic design for the tape’s cover sleeves. It was impressive, as most of the bands in our era still use photocopy paper for their demo tape. But we did a full colors lazer printed covers. And it was pretty cheap in Singapore. The cover shown me doing fire-breathing with long iron chains on my neck and there is even a text ‘ Keep The Cross Upside Down’ at the back of the cover which described our attitude in The Ravens. And yes, the old school logo were done by me.

This tape might not be the best rehearsal ever recorded in Malaysia, but I do proud that we could stand up against all the trends in here. That’s all I could share with you for now. I would like to say my thanks to all the metalheads that bought this tape. Thanks for believe in me…

~Rammy
The drummer, The inventor, The Raven