ALCHEMIST: Jar of Kingdom

Produced by Alchemist and Brett Stanton

Released: 1993

Alchemist's Jar of Kingdom is one of the most tripped-out metal albums one is likely to hear. At the start of the 1990s, Australia's metal scene was really still in its infancy. Without the Internet or the benefit of the few metal-specific record labels like Modern Invasion and Warhead that would surface in subsequent years, the scene was far more underground than it is today. Very few bands had recorded or released full-length albums and most weren't well known outside of their hometowns as only the most well-established could be guaranteed crowds of a size that would make touring worthwhile. Despite this, it's unlikely that a band as strange as Alchemist could have remain undiscovered for very long.

No other metal band in the world was doing anything as remotely weird as this Canberra four-piece, and few do so even today. Jar of Kingdom is, succinctly described, rather like what a death metal album by Pink Floyd would sound like if Frank Zappa was their musical director. The arrangements are angular and virtually disjointed at times; the music is almost confusing in its quirkiness and the effect is sometimes harsh and otherworldly. At times, it's not like listening to a metal album at all.

Jar of Kingdom is a very strange album with some very strange elements. "Whale", for example, is the sound of a whale accompanied by some rather peculiar instrumentation. "Shell" contains some ethereal, slightly off-key keening by female vocalist Michelle Klemke, a strident counterpoint to Adam Agius' still-undeveloped death growls. The slide guitars and keyboards that dominate later Alchemist albums aren't as prevailing here but the grinding death metal undercurrent of the tracks are offset by abrupt, jarring, discordant guitar notes, strange psychedelic passages and swirling acoustic interludes. This is Alchemist at their rawest and most experimentally bizarre, a band pushing the envelope of creativity to such a point that even through the diabolical sound quality of the recording it remains clear that a dauntingly inventive musical outift has emerged. The ten tracks here marked Alchemist, then and now, as a band that plays by nobody's rules but their own. Jar of Kingdom is a journey that begins looking down on the world from the Moon, travels through the planes of the human psyche, conception and perception and ends far out beyond the reaches of the Solar System. It's a trip that is as wild and uncanny as it sounds and some may find it a just a little bit too odd to comprehend.

Jar of Kingdom was a groundbreaking album, not just for Alchemist but for the Australian metal scene. The original Lethal version is a rarity now, but the sound quality is so poor that only the most rabid collector would want to track it down. Fortunately, Alchemist remixed this album in late 1998 and reissued it the following year so that everyone could finally experience it the way it was meant to sound. Not only that, but they included tracks from their 91 demo as well, one of which, "Womb Syndromb", exceeds even Jar of Kingdom itself in weirdness.
Abstraction

1. Shell
2. Purple
3. Jar of Kingdom
4. Wandering and Wondering
5. Found
6. Enhancing Enigma
7. Whale
8. Bruma: A View From Pluto
9. World Within Worlds

Rating: 78%