Photos courtesy of Morfem

On its third full-length record — and its fifth release overall — Jakarta rock band Morfem does not plan on moving beyond its fuzzed-out roots.

A band clearly made for mosh pits and alcohol-filled shindigs, there’s a satisfactory non-complexity to its reliable brand of punky grunge.

In sharp contrast to lead vocalist Jimi Multhazam’s other band — the very successful and very colorful new-wave ravers The Upstairs — Morfem revels in the monochromatic.

The band’s music sounds exactly how one would imagine a group influenced by Nirvana and The Ramones should. There are other musical elements there, but Dramaturgi Underground takes the former’s immersive abrasiveness and the latter’s sense of punchy forward motion.

The album’s just-right number of tracks — there are eight songs — sustains a crunchy propulsive quality from the get-go.

The record’s strongest quality is the exuberant crunchiness of its production. There’s rarely anything more than a guitar-bass-drums-vocals combination — and it works wonders in giving songs personality. This pretty much what the band sounds like live, or what it would be like in their rehearsal space.

At certain points, post-production tendencies crop up — particularly during harmonies — but they feel like mere hiccups within the record’s energy-first/ production-later approach.

Opener “Anabasstudineus” does more than take elements from Nirvana’s “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter”, but does a lot with that song’s hypnotic caveman pounding.

So does the later-era Ramones pop-punk bliss of “Roman Underground” and the blistering “Memento”, with free-floating vocalizing that gives it a 1970s punk sensibility. The track also drifts out with the album’s noisiest coda, an increasingly loud static of guitar feedback and noise atop a disciplined rhythm section.

The band still relies on a tried-and-tested formula, said guitarist Pandu Fuzztoni. “I come to Jimi with the guitar riffs and some melodies and he gets down to writing the lyrics,” he explained.

“Jungkir Balik” (Turning upside down) harkens back to the band’s previous record, with allusions to the aforementioned influences but also a more raunchy edge — chunky riffs cut through the song between distorted vocals and speeding drums.

The semi-jokey track “Metode Organik Rasakan Fase Embrionik Manusia” (Organic feel methods of the human embryonic phase) alludes to the band’s moniker and runs only 5 seconds but is a certain crowd pleaser as the band played it three times in a row at the record’s release party.

The record’s emotionality is, according to the band, the result of what they had to endure together as a musical collective — a family of sorts.

While The Upstairs has had plenty of lineup changes, Morfem was Jimi’s attempt at something more democratic and familial.

What he discovered, however, was that every band is its own odd, little family. Though he and the rest of the band’s members would not say what their struggles entailed, they were happy to note that they had passed them.

“In the end, we were able to handle the conflict together, even though there was a lot of lengthy drama involved,” said Jimi, adding that “the ‘Dramaturgi’ in the title refers to [those dramatic moments], which we then combined with ‘Underground’.”

The sludgy intro of “Audisi Sebuah Opera” (An opera audition) makes way for some mid-tempo power pop, complete with sing-song verses, “oh oh” harmonies and a melody-heavy chorus. It’s the record’s most mellow point and it’s less appealing (the processed vocals don’t help much; Jimi works best when his looseness reverberates atop songs).

The record has been released along with 10 illustrations by artists Aprilia Apsari, Ahmad Djali Rizzali, Ahmad Madfire Muarif, Argy Pradypta, Farid Stevy, Gama Dwisetya, Marishka Soekarna, Rato Tanggela, Reza Pradipto and Ricky Malau. It’s a recent trend, with more and more groups jumping on the bandwagon.

Dramaturgi Underground is another very solid release from Morfem. It’s not going to revolutionize rock music, but it will to do the job by filling up more than a few mosh pits around town.

For Jimi, it is the ultimate Morfem album.

“This is truly my favorite record [that the band has released], mainly due to the production quality and packaging — this album is the total package,” he said, adding that the record was also a personal breakthrough for him, presenting a chance to utilize a more poetic approach to lyric writing.

Pandu concurred: “This is the best record we’ve done, because I finally found the sound that I’ve been looking for, with the gear I’ve always used live. The same pre-amp and cheap amp I’ve used on stage.”

“It’s a sound I describe as ‘biting’. I’ve been borrowing other people’s equipment to find that tone for such a long time, but sometimes the sound you’re looking for is what you already have,” he added.

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