''The Habit of Fire'' is a 2007 album by

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

n avant-garde metal band

Kekal Kekal (sometimes stylized as KEKAL) is a heavy metal and electronic music band formed in 1995 in Jakarta, Indonesia. According to AllMusic, Kekal was one of the first heavy metal bands from Indonesia to make international inroads, and accordin ...

. Released on 15 May in North America, Japan & Australia and 15 March in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

, it is their sixth full-length album. The album was constructed during Jeff's move to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, and was the last album recorded in his home studio in Indonesia. There is an official music video for the song "Isolated I".

Concept

In an interview with Ultimate Metal.com, Jeff said that "''The Habit of Fire'' is a concept album about the living energy in a human being that has become our archetype of survival... ...The fire itself represents an energy or spirit that can never be taken down by outside forces. The lyrical themes are based around a 12-million people metropolis within a post-dictatorship country, heading down into chaos due to the people's inability to adapt with the global winds of change."

Recording

In the same interview, Jeff said that the recording process was only the second album that the band did not have a single problem in the recording process. About 75% of the music was written during pre-production. Jeff would collect samples and create

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...

information, and manipulate the sounds to create the 'skeleton'. Then riffs, MIDI instruments, synthesizers, and melodies would be added and the structure re-arranged. Once the song structure was set, the guitars would be re-recorded, then bass and drum tracks would be put on top, then vocals. Overall, it took over seven months to complete.

Reception and style

''The Habit of Fire'' met with a mixed reception by critics. It was praised for its diverse style and instrumentation as well as its quality musicianship, but was considered repetitive and over-indulgent at times, as well as somewhat inaccessible and difficult to digest. The album was nominated for The Best Avantgarde Metal Album award by the popular metal website

Metal Storm Metal Storm Limited was a research and development company based in Brisbane, Australia, that specialized in electronically initiated superposed load weapons technology and owned the proprietary rights to the electronic ballistics technology ...

, and in November 2007, the album was chosen as the CD of the Month by UK's music technology magazine ''

Sound on Sound ''Sound on Sound'' is an independently owned monthly music technology magazine published by SOS Publications Group, based in Cambridge, United Kingdom. The magazine includes product tests of electronic musical performance and recording devices, ...

''. On this release, the band reduced its

black metal Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, a shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, raw (lo-fi) recording, unconventional song structures, and an emp ...

sound to make room for atmospheric

soundscape A soundscape is the acoustic environment as perceived by humans, in context. The term was originally coined by Michael Southworth, and popularised by R. Murray Schafer. There is a varied history of the use of soundscape depending on discipline, ...

s and industrial textures. The music is varied, combining the band's

metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...

roots with styles such as

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. In ...

, electronica, psychedelic ambient, and jazz fusion, giving the album a "breathless, almost ADD" feel. The experimental aspects of the album were likened to

Tool A tool is an object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many animals use simple tools, only human beings, whose use of stone tools dates ba ...

, while the progressive elements were compared to Marillion and the heavier passages to

Mortal Mortal means susceptible to death; the opposite of immortal. Mortal may also refer to: * Mortal (band), a Christian industrial band * The Mortal, Sakurai Atsushi's project band * ''Mortal'' (novel), a science fiction fantasy novel by Ted Dekker ...

PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...

described the album as "flipping randomly between radio stations playing Rush,

King Crimson King Crimson are a progressive rock band formed in 1968 in London, England. The band draws inspiration from a wide variety of music, incorporating elements of classical, jazz, folk, heavy metal, gamelan, industrial, electronic, experime ...

, Ulver, and

the Mars Volta The Mars Volta is an American progressive rock band from El Paso, Texas, formed in 2001. The band's only constant members are Omar Rodríguez-López (guitar, producer, direction) and Cedric Bixler-Zavala (vocals, lyrics), whose partnership for ...

Track listing

Personnel

Jeff Arwadi Jefray Kurnia "Jeff" Arwadi (born 1974) is an Indonesian musician, music producer, and graphic designer. A native of Jakarta, Indonesia, he now resides in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is mostly known as a former guitarist, vocalist, and record ...

Azhar Levi Sianturi Azhar Levi Sianturi is an Indonesian musician and mechanical engineer. He is mainly known in the music scene as the former bassist for avant-garde/progressive metal band Kekal. He also has his own grindcore project called Mournphagy. His professi ...

Leo Setiawan Leonard "Leo" Setiawan is mainly known as a former guitarist for progressive metal band Kekal. His main occupation is civil engineer and he owns and operates a building development firm in Jakarta, Indonesia. Kekal Leo joined Kekal in 1996, ju ...

Guest musicians

* Jason DeRon – additional

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

on "Escapism" * Kenny Cheong –

fretless bass A fretless bass is a bass guitar whose neck does not have any frets. While the instrument is played in all styles of music, it is most common in pop, rock, and jazz. It first saw widespread use during the 1970s, although some players used them befo ...

on "Escapism" *Safrina –

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

on "Saat Kemarau" *Didi Priyadi – additional guitar solo on "Isolated I"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Habit of Fire, The 2007 albums Kekal albums Industrial albums by Indonesian artists Noise rock albums Jazz fusion albums by Indonesian artists