Noose Bound is the hottest Metalic Hardcore act in Malang Hardcore since in the middle of last year. Established since 2017 consist of Bagas (Vocal), Rio (Drum), Alfin (Bass), Icang dan Devrizal (Guitar), they were successful concocting dark-and-punchy riff then combine with full of anger and depressive lyric. proved from their third released tracks titled ‘The Needle’, ‘Paint Me Red’ and ‘Lost In The Plot’ which invite a guest vocal from other Malang hardcore band called Hand Of Hope, Fauzi.
In 2022, they successfully released their first debut album called ‘To The Same End’ which released via Samstrong Record (Central Java) and Set The Fire Record (Jakarta). This album containing 10 tracks and involve 3 Guest Vocals such as Fauzi (Hand Of Hope), Rizky Ananda (Sharkbite, Mika) and Patricia Levyta that premiere released on uniteasia.org in February 11, 2022. Two days before Inspired27’s first showcase called Teenage Become Power.
and fortunately, we’ve got a chance to a little chit chat with Noose Bound’s Frontman, Bagaskoro Akmal.
1. Hi, Bagas! How are you?
– Hi Rizal from Inspired, thanks for asking! I feel pretty great at the moment, just recovered after tested positive with Covid-19 couple weeks back (that made me missed the Inspired’s Tenbo show 😢) but thank God it’s all good now.
2. How long does the TTSE album process was taken? and how does the material work process take place?
– It’s really a long process! I can’t remember exactly how long it takes but I feel it almost takes 2 years I think? The material work process is kinda tiring actually, we just went in and out on the studio, record instruments for every material we’ve made in Griffin (Studio), which all engineered by Mas Ayok of Screaming Factor (God bless him!), and record the vocal parts mostly in AA (Studio), finally finished all the recording process including mixed & mastered in November last year. The current situation at that time while we’re working on the album (due to Covid-19 outbreak) affect all of the process too, delayed the recording, the release date, all the plans we’ve prepared, everything. But we’re glad now the album is out & we’re finally made it.
3. talking about all tracks in TTSE, what do you want to convey through this whole album?
– “To The Same End” is basically a manifestation of anger packed in one album. Not just in the term of music that we want to deliver them to be as angry & heavy as possible, but the lyrics also holds that emotion as well. The lyrics are written with a biting sense of anger and self-reflection, mostly dealing with instropective and fatalistic themes like anxiety, despair, self-doubt, or personal betrayals, that mostly revolves around a thing that every living being can’t escape, deaths.
4. In the process of working on the TTSE album, is it possible that there is 1 specific band/album that affects the music color and songwriting on all the tracks in this album? or maybe there are many other bands / albums that influence and inspire?
– There’s so many bands and albums that inspired us while writing those songs on TTSE, in my point of view, I definitely choose not to take just 1 specific band / album that affects this record as a whole, because that won’t do this record justice. TTSE is the result of everything we’ve heard in these past years and that means tons of bands and albums. In this album, we want to create something that relate with the listeners of our influences, something that they’re familiar with, but also adds our own colours and twist into it to maintain our character as a band. We’re not just pay attention to the bands that influenced us in the first place like Knocked Loose or Code Orange, but also all of the bands in the metallic hardcore genre, especially in the 90’s era where their roots dwell in such as Disembodied, Zao, or even Merauder, which their “Master Killer” riffs is the one that inspired the first part of “Haplessburg”.
5. Regarding the newly released MV, Haplessburg, what do you want to tell / convey on this track?
– Speaking of the devil, hahaha. “Haplessburg” is basically a song we dedicated to our hometown. We want to make a song about it, but we don’t want it to seems too obvious because we want this song to relate with other people outside our city too, some people that might feel what we feel towards their hometown. The story behind “Haplessburg” is about a huge amount of love you had to a special place, a place that might not just have a great memories, but also a bad ones, a painful ones. That place held so many flaws, so many imperfections, but you keep loving that place no matter what happens, no matter how worse things might becomes there, because it means too much for you. ‘Haplessburg’ itself comes from the English word “Hapless” which means ‘Malang’, as well as burg which is a slang / informal word of ‘city’ which means ‘kota / city’ in Indonesian. Implicitly, the title of this song tries to give the impression of the name of a city in the middle of nowhere like Johannesburg, but it should be obvious this song is actually about our hometown, Kota Malang.
6. How long does the MV of the Haplessburg track itself take? or maybe there is a unique story when working on the mv?
– It take 2 days of shooting for the MV, and for an unique story? It’s more like an annoying ones, hahaha. So some of the plan we’ve made to take a few shots at some outdoor places were screwed due to a heavy rain in those two days. It really got on our nerves and annoyed the hell out of us at that time, luckily Tio Setiawan of Elora Pictures is a brilliant videographer who could maximize what we’ve got on all the shots we’ve taken. Now, we’re pretty pleased with the final result & we hope people who watched it feel that too.
7. On the last track in TTSE entitled ‘Idle Call’, Patricia Levyta became the guest vocalist in the song, which is she is one of the soloist singers from Malang. If you don’t mind, where did the idea come from to get Patricia Levyta to do guest vocals on the track?
– Our guitarist Tape (Devrizal Maruapey) is the first one who actually come up with that idea. We had this track called ‘Idle Call’ for a while, who holds a Code Orange / Converge feat. Chelsea Wolfe vibes, but we’re kinda clueless whose voice might fit with this song, and then Tape recommended her name. We checked her performance at IRL Gigs when singing ‘In The Darkness’ on Youtube, then blown away and agreed that her voice might works well with our track. Long story short we asked her via Instagram, she responded and pretty welcome with the idea, then finally took her voice at Griffin Studio.
8. If you have to choose one, what is your favorite track in this TTSE album?
– For me personally, I’d love to choose “Haplessburg” because it’s one of a few tracks in the album that carry a NYHC sound, a sound that I always adore & grew up with. In a hardcore genre, I’m super into TUI, Expire, Bactrack, Incendiary, etc. I remember the first thing I noticed when I heard Knocked Loose was “Holy shit, this band is like a mixed of Code Orange and Expire / TUI with a ‘deathcore’ feels” and that makes me relate to them more. 80’s NYHC is a really big aspect to shape the 90’s Metallic Hardcore/Metalcore sound we’re now adopted. So, besides the lyrics that are talking about our hometown, the music also slightly tells you where our genre came from. Those two important messages in this song is actually the main reason why we choose “Haplessburg” as our next MV, and our most ambitious thing we made yet after the album.
9. This is the last one. and if you don’t mind, can you provide 3 recommended albums / bands that may be ‘on repeat’ or may affect the personal style of music / the whole band?
– Again it’s came from me personally, and I would like to mention Knocked Loose, Code Orange, and Jesus Piece as the 3 bands that affects our personal style of music the most.
if you love some 90’s hardcore bands like Earth Crisis, Disembodied, Zao, Hatebreed or even millennial hardcore bands like Knocked Loose, Jesus Piece, Code Orange and Varials, you couldn’t miss this band, check them out.
(In case you missed it, we have a Collaboration Merch with Noose Bound and you can purchase it here)
Writen by Rizal Nandha
