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Started the Day With Insane Black Metal – Ending With Insane Punk Rock – Trophy Knives

By on July 23, 2021

It’s Friday night here in Asia and what a fucking day it’s been…we started the day with an INTENSE track by new one-man black metal act roaring out of South Korea called Ambroxiak which you have to check out HERE, and we’re ending the day with another type of intense track – something much more stripped down but equally as powerful as a blast beat heavy metal track

Our boys in Malaysian punk rock band Trophy Knives have always delivered, but something about this much more gentle approach to songwriting pushes the lyrical content so much more to the fore. The band has just released ‘Act 1: The Acknowledgement’ which, the band states, is their 11th music video! Holy shit…clearly the band is aware that in this day in and age, VISUALS are so vital to a band’s prominence.

On this particular song (which also serves as the first taste of their upcoming second full-length ‘Look the Other Way’), the band is showcasing their attempt to handle topics such as racism, sexism and bigotry. This time, instead of shrilling screams and pounding drums, the band treats us to haunting vocals and melodic, acoustic guitar lines. For us as representatives of the more brown side of Asian skin tones the particular line in this song that really resonated with us is:

They’ll sell you adverts to whiten your skin, Darken your thoughts, dampen your spirits.

Being bombarded with skin whitening creams, lotions, whatever-the-fucks our entire lives, this lyric worked most definitely as a hook that brought us deeper into the content of the song. Vocalist Vinesh explained, “That line especially is in regards to all the crazy whitening beauty products that are marketed over here in Malaysia, some of these products are still using blackface as if it’s still the 50’s!” As we shake off the intensity of the lyrics, Vinesh added, “Without giving too much away, this song nails the current state of our country and how helpless most of us feel at the moment, the music video accurately articulates the fact that it only takes one person to change the world and change starts within us. It’s been absolutely beautiful to see how many people are taking matters into their own hands by providing aid to those in need which exemplifies the fact that community is everything.”

This is Trophy Knives first foray into animation. The video was created by Zulhemi Zainuddin and produced by Azizulhakim Salleh off Fracas Works famed for their work with The Venopian Solitude, Iqbal M. and Hacktick!. “When the lockdown was announced in May, it became quite apparent to us that we would not be able to shoot our proposed music videos at least for the next couple of months, so we decided to do something we’ve never done before which is to produce an animated video instead. We reached out to our friends over at Fracas Works and exchanged ideas and within a couple of weeks, our ideas were realized and we couldn’t be happier with the final version of the video.”

Now…go jam the track…

https://www.facebook.com/Trophyknivesband

UniteAsia.org is an underground Asian music news website created for the sole purpose of supporting our own world. We support all bands and genres HOWEVER we do not support nor have any sympathy for homophobic, racist, sexist rhetoric in lyrical content or band material. UNITE ASIA!
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