Febians

My not entirely scientific, half-arsed estimation is that this 'middle-album' by Melayu Heavyweights FEBIANS might be the most rare of their 3 vinyls. incidently, 'middle-album' would also describe it quality wise, for better or worse.

They start out strong with the heavily Iron Maiden-influenced title track. So the verse might be a bit too familiar for comfort (*cough* Hallowed Be Thy Name *cough*) but the eastern guitar harmonies give it just the right amount of unique & exotic flavour to let us see past the cheating.  The lead guitar-noodle of "Bakteria" (bloody awesome title right?) is another hauntingly familiar piece of possible riff-off but my overloaded bio-computer brain can't quite nail it at the moment. Petty finger pointing aside this uptempo number is an absolute hit of catchy, NWOBHM/Priest-flavoured fastness-Metal and definitely in the top-5 of the band's repertoire. Concerning the following "Disebalik Langsir Biru" and "Rock N Roll", I first want to point out that I'm as much a closet fan of snappy hardrockers as the next metalhead, but these 2 particular tunes cannot be described in any other terms than generic and forgettable, however good intentions were present.

Instrumental Theme-Song opens side B and yeah, it's Metal alright and not half-bad, but the mix on this particular track feels quite thin'n'tinny - where the Hell are the guitars?! The final highlight is another early-Maiden-flavoured hit in the form of "Ranjau Hidup", but this one together with the 2 metallers on side A is unfortunately not enough to make this album a standout and/or top-10 must-haves of Malay Steel, at least not for the uninitiated beginner. At the very least one would have hoped that one or two of the 5 ballad fillers would have been in the same epic and Heavy league as some of those on the debut, but no such luck this time around.