Kraton - The Nusantara Chronicles

Kraton is a Singapore band playing sort of Symphonic/Gothic metal fused with traditional music.

This is their first album called The Nusantara Chronicles.
Nusantara can mean the Indonesian Archipelago or Malay Archipelago or the main central mass of South East Asia.
I think much research has been done to create this album which is based on the legends, myths and history of Nusantara.

The cd is split to 14 parts, of which there are seven songs sung in either the Malay language or English. 
A short narration in English precede each song to give a better idea whats the song message/background is. They use two singers, a female and male.
This cd is very impressive, refreshing and interesting.

So you got stories and songs about the history of Majapahit. The birth and the expansions of this empire 500-600 years ago.
Reminds me of Maiden's To Tame A Land with all these tongue twisting names and characters mentioned - Ken Arok, a gambling thief, Tunggul Ametung, the ruler of Tumapel, Kebo Ijo, a royal servant, and to make all these oaths, killings, invasions, betrayals, warfares even better, we got the Mongols in there too.

Song number five My Faithfully Departed is interesting about human sacrifices to the volcanoes of Indonesia like Merapi, Mount Bromo, etc back in those times. 
This is a song of a mother who had to sacrifice her 25th child to the active volcano due to their beliefs.

My favourite song on this cd is called Hilangnya Pelangi (Rainbow is gone/lost).
This is about Malin Kundang.
About this young man and his mother who came from a poor background. He traveled and got to become super rich, and one day his ship sails back to his home area, but he was too embarrassed to admit the old poor woman who approach him as his mother.
So he was cursed for his ungratefulness, and he turned to stone. 
This slow sad song describes the feelings of his mother.
I think by itself this song is superb, but to understand the meaning of this song makes it awesome.

I like the style of this band, and I like this cd very much.