Labels: Utarid
Review by: Oli Saunders
This is a late entry to the most ridiculous record packaging of the year competition. The tape comes in what looks like a stencilled soap dish. Mine is pink. Inside there is a yellow tape and nice booklet with lyrics and pictures. Which are pretty weird. A mouth on legs, a guy who has no eyes and the top of his head opened up is shouting, another guy is dancing in a noose. They do relate to the songs though and overall the whole package is really neat.
Until now I’ve not reviewed any of Dramacoma’s music. They had a demo CDr out last year of the year before. It was alright but somewhere near the bottom in the pecking order of Malaysian screamo. I still liked it though and it sounded a bit different. Two of the songs from the demo later got put on a split CDr with Burn Her Letters not too long back.
This tape contains new songs on it and to be honest I wasn’t expecting a lot more than what I have heard previously. So it is a pleasant surprise to see that things have improved greatly and this is now really solid screamo. Taking influences, as always, from lots of other Malaysian bands, Dramacoma play a chaotic mess that is not overly intense but ambles on enjoyably. Guitar lines are a bit preditable and non inventive but hey, that’s being overly harsh. There is plenty of passion and that’s more important. The vocals are nice enough and the song lyrics are interesting; topics include the death penalty, lost friendship, and war.
Overall if you like the slightly less harsh Malaysian bands such as Halal / Hadhari and The Diary For Memories I think you’ll like this. I personally prefer the harsher stuff such as Daighila’s ‘Henceforth’ tape from a few months back, but still appreiate this sound.
20th December 2009