Untaian Legam

Dry's second full-length album (and fourth record, not counting any other singles), "Untaian Legam", is the band's last full-length, before finally focusing on only releasing some singles and tracks for compilation albums. And as a full-length album, this is possibly Dry's best record ever released.

Unlike their previous albums (which sound more akin to blackened thrash), this album drops their "original" sound in favor of Norwegian sound. Fortunately, the Indonesian sound is still retained on it, which can be known by the speed of the sound (showing how most Indonesian metal bands are obsessed by the insanely speed of death metal). The drumming is so fast, but compared to the guitars and bass riffs, it is still not really loud (it can only be heard in few parts, most notably during the break-beats), showing how (actually just a little bit) unbalanced the instrumentation is. But the composition and structure of the songs are awesome, as only few Indonesian bands could add such an emotional feeling in their black metal sound. Even they revel in being semi-melancholic (yet still grim enough), for example in the song "Dalam Deru Pusaran Kelam" and "Sengketa". As if it's not enough only changing their sound entirely, they have now lengthened the songs from the majority of the songs being only 2 or 3 minutes (at least only in "Belenggu Kelam" they're like this) to being 4 or 5 minutes. The production quality sounds decent, as the vocals at some times sound like as if they came out from a chamber. The singing itself is however quite boring, forgettable and soulless, making me wish the vocalist could have even felt the soul of the song.

The theme "Untaian Legam" (Indonesian for "Strands of Blackness") just fits enough to this album, as it is filled not only with blackness, but also with angst and melancholy. You might just like this almost entirely, as long as you can stand for the extremely boring singing.