Abysmal Sculptures Zine #6 review

ABYSMAL SCULPTURES Zine #6 (Singapore)
September 2007
30 pages A4 – English written
Here is a zine that seems well established in the Asian underground scene; ABYSMAL SCULPTURES Zine is headed by the editor Al Fahmi who also plays in BEAST PETRIFY. You can find the traditional section of a good zine that is to say a bunch of 10 interviews with essentially confidential bands, labels, zines: HEPTAMERON, EMPHERIS/HELLISH/R’LYEH Zine, MERCILESS CRUCIFIXION, THE WRECKAGE, KAMPF Records, CONFINEMENT, FARASU, SEMPITERNUS, SWAMP and MEDIEVAL. The editor tries to cover many styles (though more death metal wouldn’t be a luxury) and emphasises on unknown acts from Malaysia, which is a scene that needs to emerge a lot. The interviews are correctly led, therefore the way of often asking the same questions could be tiring, I know I am not the best example of human relation but at least the guy could build his sentences differently (a lack of inspiration?). As usual, the chats’ return depends on the bands’ mood: you can reach top of lameness with SWAMP or read about at least cool answers from EMPHERIS or THE WRECKAGE.
Al Fahmi has a shitload of contacts so you can read reviews of stuff from worldwide even if sometimes these reviews look like some mailorder descriptions or seemed to have been written in a hurry as some statements are a bit confusing: AQUER defined as crust/grind metal or UNMERCIFUL described as a mix of IMMOLATION and ATROCITY!!! Weird, but I think you are sometimes not really excited to review some stuff.
On the contrary, the editor wrote about horror/gore movies and he seems completely possessed by these topics as you have a good description of the movie and if it’s worth seeing it. You can find an article about Rip-offs, a Cuban scene report done by Osvaldo of Cannibal Zine; here a personal point of view about this guy: he contacted me months ago for an intie about Deep Vein, he asked me for bio, pix, etc…and then sent me a dozen questions without having heard a single not of my band. At the end of his letter the guy asked about me to send stuff from my band!!! Strange behaviour!
The whole is done in a clear and computerized lay out with small fonts, even if the editor could win some space by reducing borders and filling two blank pages.
Not bad concerning the interviews which are the highlight of the zine but an effort of improvement shall be done about the demos/CD reviews.
Contact: Al FAHMI – Yishun Central Post Office – PO BOX 420 – SINGAPORE 917614