Tympanic Membrane is what it would sound like if a pack of subhuman sewer dwellers snuck up to the surface, discovered musical instruments for the first time, took them down to their lair, and proceeded to play some really shitty brutal death metal, all while recording their abysmal efforts into a tape deck they found in a dumpster.
To be fair, Tympanic was one of the first brutal death metal bands in Indonesia – they formed all the way back in 1994 – so most of the bands in the area did not yet have the formula down just right, but that's still no excuse to make music this shitty. As I said before, the music sounds like it was recorded into a discarded tape deck. Everything is muffled and quiet and overall hard to hear. Not only that, but the sound quality is horribly inconsistent. One song will be quiet while another song will be really loud. The drums just play your standard blast beats, double bass and fills. There's nothing special to them. They do nothing to stand out. They're just... there.
The vocals consist of a strange impish growl that gets annoying real fast. His performance is haphazard, incomprehensible, and makes no fucking sense. As for the guitars, they just poorly imitate all the death metal bands that were popular in Florida at that time. The riffs are not original in the slightest and they can't hold my attention at all. There are also a few moments where they try to perform a solo, but they're a complete mess. It just sounds like the guitarist is wailing on his fretboard in a fit of impotent rage. Don't believe me? Just listen to the solo on “Shaman”. It sounds like a horrible avalanche of shattered steel.
The only complement I can afford these guys is that I can hear the bass really well. It's just too bad that it sounds so boring and mundane. Overall, this demo was muddled, haphazard, and utterly dull. It's not atrociously bad, but it will bore you to sleep.
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