format: LP
year: 1991
country: Malaysia
label: Warnada
#: WA 1605
info: The track order on the back sleeve is mixed up. Presented here is the correct one, also corresponding with the labels.
style: Heavy Metal
Side A:
Side B:
When I first got wind of the old Singapore/Malaysian Metal scene some 20 odd years ago, I imagined the number of actual vinyl albums available would be in the 1-digit magnitude. Today my ancient dreams of one day "completing" this scene is long gone. There's (very) roughly two hundred or more oddities like these out there, and the amount of really lame & wimpy ones is way too high to just buy them blindly for completeness' sake. On the other hand there is also a fair percentage of these albums that are more than worthy want-list material for any collector of quality Obscüre Olde Metals and these are the ones we will focus on here at The Corroseum. Mostly.
I'm not yet quite sure if "Harimau" makes the Malay Metal Top-5 (edit: made up my mind - it does) but it sure is one of the most intriguing and unique albums of the scene. With a great comp-track and solid, heavy debut LP from earlier the same year, this is where Lipanbara really excelled.
How to describe this little pearl then? Well, out of all the multitude of bands and albums I've ever compared to Queensrÿche, this is one of the less 'rÿche-sounding ones, if that makes any sense? I also wants to call them progressive Metal ...sometimes. But then I realize it's a term that often makes myself turn a deaf ear, so that's no good either. They're clever bastards that's for sure, but they don't make a fuss about it and show off in the same way that many of their western contemporaries did. Songs are clearly their focus and man do they have some killer ones!
The entrancing opening track "Blues Tongkat Ali" is, despite its ridiculously misleading title, a piece of high-end Metal ingenuity, at times almost collage-like in nature and yet it has such wonderful flow. The semi-ballad "Moga Sempura" breaks out of the dull Malay-schmallad mould with some exquisit Eastern/camelback riffing, "Serangan Kilat" would actually have fit rather well on an 80's 'rÿche album, and the 8+ minute "Harimau Hilang Belang + Interlude" is just pure epicness with those majestic keyboard-infused bits. There are some lighthearted moments in tracks like "Hidup Biar Berjasa" and "Kedamaian", but nowhere near the melo-HR fluff that infested so many albums of their countrymen's. Rather, these moments have more in common with the type of 'hit-singles' that Iron Maiden released at the time. Speaking of misleading titles, "Sweet Seventeen" is just wrong Wrong WRONG for such a neat piece of Classic US Power Metal-idolatry and here towards the end of the album I realize how much of the strength of the band lies in the excellent vocals.
...Come to think of it, the fairly high average of Malaysian Metal vocalists is probably one of several reasons why I've grown to enjoy this scene more than any other Asian one (I'm looking at you Japan!)