The Science of Thought

Indonesia never dries out when we're talking about its vibrant, passionate, and terrific metal scene. In this occasion, the unit DJIN from the city of Medan caught my ears and heart. As I've always been a loyal follower of Indonesian metal, the band DJIN is a new name to me, and I only knew about them because the guitarist is my friend's uncle. I never thought too much about it until I decided to listen to this album, and brother am I impressed. In essence, it's your average technical death metal stuff, leaning into more melodic approach. But as standard as it sounds, The Science of Thought is very far from those cheap, mass manufactured techdeath record.

First notable thing that I have to mention is that for a technical death metal band, I dare to say that they have the balls to experiment to create their signature style and to differentiate themselves from other techdeath bands. In this particular album, it is obvious that a lot of their influence not only came from technical death metal bands, but industrial metal and progressive metal bands as well. You can hear a prominent use of keyboard, weird sound effects, clean vocals and hell, even a fucking digital drum. Either you love it or hate it, this kind of experimentation is something that I very much want to hear in a circle filled with oversaturated and pretentious bands being a bunch of tryhards trying to sound as alien as possible. In the other hand, The Science of Thought is a very pleasant, well balanced album, blending both high level musicianship and catchy songwriting that both core kids and elitist boomers can enjoy. The industrial metal parts namely the many usage of synths and electronics, though prominent it doesn't sound obnoxious or overdone, as you can clearly see their vision to highlight the technical death metal more than the rest, because the industrial or progressive metal part is only there to add some spice to the album.

Second thing that I have to mention is the songwriting and the overall flow of the album. The way each song flows into each other flawlessly still fascinates me, you can literally Frankenstein every song together into a single track and it would work perfectly. Besides the fact that every song seems to transition seamlessly, every single one of them has a unique flavour of their own to make sure that you'll never get bored when you're listening to this album. There are quite a few tracks that mash chaotic chromatic riffing with neat melodies, and sometimes a guitar solo. About the vocals, I can't say it was the most impressive thing ever, but it gets the job done by adding more aggression to the already angry music. The usage of the clean vocal is a bit controversial, but considering this album is already pretty bizarre both with or without it, I honestly don't really mind as they stick with the prog sections really well, but most importantly it's not overdone. The drumming sounds pretty fluid compared to a lot of plastic tech death drumming that uses blast beat for the entire length of the album, in this album the drum parts have a lot of variety from blast beats to half time breakdown. And finally the production quality is exceptionally clean, every instrument is very balanced in terms of mixing as you can hear everything clearly.

In conclusion, it's safe to say that The Science of Thought is THE BEST technical death metal album I've ever heard, and I really doubt that my thought of this album is going to change at all. It's complex, experimental, melodic, and heavy front to back without a single room for error. I can see why my bud is so proud of his uncle for being involved in this album. This album is very recommended for those just got into metal and those who's a hard boiled metalhead looking for some refreshing records from Indonesia. At last, I give this album an absolute perfect score.