It seems that for the past two years, Grindcore bands in Indonesia are still active. Just look at the two aging bands, Proletar and Extreme Decay, who just released an album via Samstrong Records. The compilation of Grindonesia 12” vinyl released by Shit Resist (Singapore) and Extreme Terror Production (Amsterdam) which contains many Indonesian Grindcore bands is also a kind of marker. Like the title track Extreme Decay, this may be the return of the Year of The Grind era in Indonesia.
To Die, one of the old bands from Yogyakarta, is back to being active with new material and line ups. Having previously mutated into a collaborative project Experimental Noise, To Die returned to the band format, leaving only one founder, Indra Menus. Indra Menus himself traveled the world under the name To Die by playing Noise before deciding to use his own name.
To Die was founded in December 1998 under the name Today is Chaos. The band had to change the line up with the habit of playing a different song every time there was a change of personnel. This has resulted in almost every release they have a different sound and characteristics even though it is still in the corridor of Hardcore Punk.
Another habit of theirs is releasing split albums with other bands both from Indonesia and abroad. It was recorded that until 2017 there were around 250 of their releases with bands from 5 continents in digital format (Bandcamp, QR Codes, netlabel) or physical in the form of cassettes, CD/CDR, DVD, flash disc, floppy disc, lathe cut, vinyl, business card, 3” CDs. The packaging concept for their releases is also unique, for example a lunch box containing cassettes and covers with recipes written on them, cassettes in used Walkman containers or in pigeon gupon (houses).
After being on a hiatus from playing live and only releasing 2 unreleased songs via the Grindonesia 12 compilation, in 2021 To Die was active again by attracting several other band members. Leaving Indra Menus on vocals and synthesizer, the guitar department is filled by Rangga (Virtual Doom, Psychoriot), bass by Bagus Pratama (Laissez Faire, Grimwolf, Disposed and many other bands) and Yossi J. (Hyena, Glomt) on drums.
The formation this time they listened to a lot of Grindcore music from bands inhabited by Takafumi Matsubara, Jon Chang and Bryan Fajardo. Their song lyrics are themed about Hiroshi Maeue, a serial killer from Japan known as Suicide Website Murderer. This EP contains of 4 new songs plus 1 track Noise and is titled after Hiroshi's words after being sentenced to hang, I Wanted To Watch A Face in Agony.
Samstrong Records will be releasing this EP in a 7” lathe cut format, the cassette format itself will be Unleash Records' final release. Meanwhile, the 3” flower-shaped CD will be released later by Above Ltd. A promo tour to promote this EP is planned to start: