In the spirit of experimentation, Wynken Delirium has suffused distinctively traditional Asian sounds into its own brand of metal heaviness in the band’s third album, “Ticketless Travel Is Social Evil” . It’s an appropriately odd title for an oddity of an album by an oddball Malaysian band.
“We combined hardcore, classic rock, metal, progressive rock, and psychedelia with traditional music. We are big fans of bands like Queen and Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple and Black Sabbath as well as disko dangdut and rock dangdut. Combining these disparate influences into condensed songs were what we wanted to achieve with this album,” says Zaihas, the band’s guitarist.
The album, released late last month, is heavily themed around religion, cults and current issues. And what an audio treat the 10-track offering is. The album’s cultural inspirations are no afterthought; the “Artwork Beggars” track, for instance, tastefully starts off with what sounds like North Indian Tabla drums before a seamless transition into headbanging metal goodness.
“Milky Maze” on the other hand is a meticulously crafted audio rollercoaster merging the tranquillity of Chinese bamboo flute play with a riveting instrumental rock ‘n’ roll performance. It goes from mellow to an adrenaline rush and back again, all the while the flute play hardly gets overwhelmed and even melds perfectly with the rest of the “noise”.
“Just imagine Beatles soaked into gamelan and jaipong music, for example, before being mixed with Meshuggah style,” says Zaihas.
We couldn’t say it better ourselves.
Have a listen to the album right below:
