Flawed Element

if I were to let any old Linkin Park fans hear this album in its entirety without showing them the albumartwork and anything else physical for that matter, they will probably be quivering like excited littlechildren whom are going to the funfair for the first time.

Well, surprise: The band in question is from oneof the world’s smallest metropolitan cities, Singapore. It is perfectly understandable for a band from suchan obscure location in the music world to want to imitate a foreign musical style that had been proven tobe a successful formula many years ago, but that is not to say that Flawed Element is just another “LinkinPark ripoff”. Granted, anyone who listens to this album can certainly hear Linkin Park in it—frontman JoeChahal’s combination of catchy clean singing and spurts of anguished screams in a high register plays abig factor in this—but there are elements of progressive rock (not in the new Linkin Park’s weird style)and goth metal as well. There are Dream Theater moments on this album, most notably on tracks like“On The Surface” and “Wall Of Lies”, in which primary guitarist Jashan D. Singh shreds out solos thatremind one of the intricate tunes John Petrucci himself is famous for dishing out.

Other tracks like“Without You” and “In Memory Of” also feature acoustic guitar melodies softly plucked and strummed bysecondary guitarist Clement See, which serve as interludes between passages of hard driving electricguitars ala old Linkin Park and thus showcase the progressive element more clearly. Simple yet haunt-ingly beautiful keyboard melodies at the introduction of “Wall Of Lies” and “Desolation” remind one of goth metal icons such as Evanescence and Lacuna Coil, and spectacularly, keyboardist Jon He has a knackfor flowing seamlessly and comfortably right into the dominantly nu-metal sound favored by the band.

Although not a groundbreaking record that will be remembered in the annals of music history for dec-ades to come, this is an extremely brilliant start to a career that shows great potential to go far beyondthe shores of Singapore. A retrospectively fresh take on the traditional nu-metal style, this is the albumthat will reward the hitherto unrequited patience that old Linkin Park fans have for their fallen idols.

- ZAPH - The Fallout Magazine (August 2011, Page 2)

The arts scene in Singapore has gain popularity over the past few years and with a fusion of genres, it's undeniable that there are several forms of music in the local scene, metal being the fan for many listeners.

In my search to find an up and coming metal band, I was left memerized when i came across Flawed Element. This local outfit sounds amazing and their stage presence is impeccable. I spoke to the band's frontman Joe Chahal and he filled me in on the hirstory and future of the band.

Flawed Element was formed in 2002 with bassist Sudhin Pillai. The band cover a fusion of styles for 3years, which included Death Metal, Ni-metal and metalcore. Their achievements include reaching the Grand Finals of the world battle of the bands. Every band has its ups and downs and after the finals, the band was left without a drummer. Flawed Element was silent for the whole of 2006 but after changing their direction, the band returned to impress in the underground scene in December 2006.

Flawed Element had been around for while but it was only in 2007 when the outfit wrote more material for their new sound. A key contributor to the new sound was the introduction of Jon He, keyboards/synthesizer. The band now sounds like a fusion of Hard rock, Metal, Hip hop and electro.

Since the start of the year (2009), Flawed Element, has been performing regularly at different venues playing to a bigger audience each time. They have built a fan base locally and internationally though the new media platforms like Myspace, Reverbnation and Facebook. The band also had songs featured in Singapore Lime Magazine Compilation, Worms On Concrete.

- KARAN GREWAL - Crossroads Magazine (January 2009, Page 28)

Nu-metal band Flawed Element sent the audience into a frenzy with their visceral energy worthy of any international stage.

- LEVAN WEE - Lime Magazine (August 2008, Page 43)

Flawed Element do not do things by half - they will go all out in, well, Breaking The Silence. The home grown metal-industrial collective's debut album is a monster that goes for the jugular. Frontman Joe Chahal is wont to screaming ever so often, vocals shredded amid febrile guitars, thunderous drums and creepy F/X in scars and wall of Lies.

Thematically, it;s the usual terrain of misanthropy and apocalyptic doom, but the band display sinewy talen showing their quieter, vulnerable side. wearied croak in Nothing Remains and the last track, Worms on Concrete 2.0, which boasts hints of prog-rock and Radiohead-esque derring- do, proving they can still sojourn into the frontiers yet discovered.

- YEOW KAI CHAI - The Straits Times (November 25 2011, Page E8)

Flawed Element are polishing things up pretty fast. Armed with a scowl and penchant for nu-metal, Flawed Element aren't aiming to be your friendly neighborhood Spiderman. If there's a spot for a resident venom, however, give them a buzz. The only version of Flawed Element we know is the one that has been traversing SIngapore for the past seven years while oozing and shrieking with primal energy.

Evidently, there are quite a few other who have fallen in lone with the band's concept of good music. A notable portion of the band's fan base hails form the US and Europe, and they have a steady line of gigs-including a slot at this month's baybeats music festival (2009), which will be the band first and Flawed Element have some unexpected goodies in store for the performance. Whatever it is, just be prepared to be physically active during the set

- CHRIS CHEW - Junk Magazine (August 2009, Page 10 & 22)

It's been quite a while since i've been excited by a local band that hits this hard. Well, since the last we heard from Rudra, Meza virs and Bhelliom, anyway, admittedly, i have been weaning myself off metal and its subgenres - I even fell asleep to Linkin Park and Slipknot - but this album made me sit up. Apparently, Breaking The Silence, is a concept album of sorts, about a man who wakes up one day to himself in a world at the brink of extinction, Which is par for the course in metal albums, I guess. But truth be told the story line can be ignored, because it's all about the cathartic music. Well, for me, anyway.

That the guys know how to handle their instrument is a-given. But what piqued my interest - Other than the fact that Cedric Chew (of Meza Virs) produced the album - was how the band managed to put so much dynamic in the 11songs here, you don't feel like you've had your fill after the first salvos in the musical blitzkrieg. The initial barrage in Without You, for example, allow the band to take a neo-classical breather in the middle break, before returning to the sonic onslaught.

That isn't to say there aren't any flaws in Flawed Element's approach, Some of the lyrics are a little cliched - and nowhere is this more obvious than in the requisite ballad. Theirs is called Nothing Remains, which borrows every rock ballad cliched ever used. From Metallica's Nothing Else Matters to Live's Overcome to Guns 'n' Roses November Rain.

Fortunately, the band kicks into high gear again with a trio of unrelenting tunes - Into Depravity, Worms On Concrete, In Memory Of- before taking the foot off the pedal for Worms On Concrete 2.0. which actually reminds me a little of linkin park, but with a bit more soul.

At any rate, you can hit up the digital version of the album on Amazon, Bandcamp and iTunes, or get the physical thing at their gigs. Just vist www.flawedelement.com for the deets

-CHRISTOPHER TOH - Today Paper (September 13 2011, Page T4)

Flawed Element's Debut Album 'Breaking the Silence' is a collection of nu-metal, alternative rock songs. What is refreshing about the band is their ability to rock as themselves and not come across as an imitation of rock legends. Their songs hold up distinctively on their own and do not loose out to each other as seen with emerging rock bands.

As flawed elements flows from clean singing to painful screams and back one is fondly reminded of the original Linkin Park. Loops favourites are 'Desolation' and 'In memory of'; two very different numbers. 'Desolation' haunts with the tubular bells opening piano solo while 'In memory of' come across with a story nestled in melancholy.

theconnectingloop has finally found a rather noisy culmination to Project Decoding Silence. - The Connecting Loop (August 2012)

If I were to let any old Linkin Park fans hear this album in its entirety without showing them the album artwork—or anything else physical for that matter—he or she would probably jab me in the ribs first to interrogate me on how I got my hands on their latest record before them and then proceed to be quivering like excited little children whom are going to the funfair for the first time. Well, surprise: The band in question is from one of the world’s smallest metropolitan cities, Singapore.

The syncopated industrial beats, MIDI sound samples, simple guitar chord progressions, synth effects and pained screams all contribute to an uncanny resemblance to the Linkin Park from nearly a decade ago, so it is no wonder some American fans had made a fan music video of a song off this album on YouTube (search for “The New Chester Bennington, Flawed Element”), mistakenly thinking that this is a new Linkin Park record. Sorry to disappoint those guys, but from the looks of Minutes to Midnight and A Thousand Suns, Linkin Park won’t be revisiting their old style again, not unless they stop with the weird brand of progressive rock they are playing now. Ironically, it is a new wave of younger bands that are resurrecting Linkin Park’s original style, and apart from Flawed Element, a few other notable bands that have been taking up Linkin Park’s abandoned mantle include Red and the now defunct Opiate for the Masses.

It is perfectly understandable for a band from such an obscure location in the music world to want to imitate a foreign musical style that had been proven to be a successful formula many years ago, but that is not to say that Flawed Element is just another “Linkin Park ripoff”. Granted, anyone who listens to this album can certainly hear Linkin Park in it—frontman Joe Chahal’s combination of catchy clean singing and spurts of anguished screams in a high register plays a big factor in this—but there are elements of progressive rock (not in the new Linkin Park weird style, either) and goth metal as well. There are Dream Theater moments on this album, most notably on tracks like “On the Surface” and “Wall of Lies”, in which primary guitarist Jashan D. Singh shreds out solos that remind one of the intricate tunes John Petrucci himself is famous for dishing out. Other tracks such as “Without You” and “In Memory Of” also feature acoustic guitar melodies softly plucked and strummed by secondary guitarist Clement See, which serve as interludes between passages of hard driving electric guitars ala old Linkin Park and thus showcase the progressive element more clearly.

Simple yet hauntingly beautiful keyboard melodies at the introduction of “Wall of Lies” and “Desolation” remind one of goth metal icons such as Evanescence and Lacuna Coil, and spectacularly, the rest of each song is not modeled after the goth metal song structure as expected, because keyboardist Jon He has a knack for flowing seamlessly and comfortably right into the dominantly nu-metal sound favored by the band. In fact, violins can even be heard on the tracks “Nothing Remains” and “Worms on Concrete”, the former of which is a soft melancholic number that will move even the most hardened criminals to tears and the latter of which is a unique fusion of hard rock and symphonic metal (you can hear chorale singing in the background toward the end).

The lyrical theme is honestly pretty clichéd, as it deals with the depressive and negative feelings an android has when facing this human world of ours and all of our very human problems (i.e. political and philosophical) that come packaged with it, and the album artwork is probably a graphic reflection of its troubles, depicting how alien our world appears to the android inasmuch so as how a digital world made up of lines of computer programming codes (think the Matrix) would appear foreign to us humans as well. Such lyrical themes that revolve around facing up to and confronting our common human problems like love and what it means to be human is a staple in the realm of alternative metal though, so perhaps it’s just personally not very interesting to me.

Although not a groundbreaking record that will be remembered in the annals of music history for decades to come, this is an extremely brilliant start to a career that shows great potential to go far beyond the shores of Singapore. A retrospectively fresh take on the traditional nu-metal style, this is the album that will reward the hitherto unrequited patience that old Linkin Park fans have for their fallen idols. Just make sure not to end up labeling this album as Linkin Park’s fifth record in your iPod.

- Dane Prokofiev - Popmatters (August 2011)

Debut de estos singapurenses, que tocan un Nu Metal muy influenciado por Linkin Park y usando mucho los efectos electrónicos. Si bien es claro que tienen influencias de LP, no son iguales, por ende no esperen escuchar a una banda “clon”, ya que Flawed Element no lo es. Respecto al disco, lo encuentro muy interesante tiene unos temas muy buenos y en general todas las canciones se dejan escuchar fácilmente. A pesar de que nunca me gusto mucho Linkin Park, creo que a los fans de los mismos les gustará este álbum. Aunque dejando las comparaciones de lado, a mi me parece que es uno de los buenos discos de Nu Metal en lo que va del año.
- Nu-Metal Live Blog (July 2011)

FLAWED ELEMENT Breaking The Silence (Self-released) Rating: This metal collective has been on the scene for almost a decade and, on their first full-length album, they've really and truly gone for it.

Styled in the vein of nu-metal acts like Linkin Park, it boasts songs like Into Depravity and Scars, which are all booming drums and melodic guitars, punctuated by frontman Joe Chahal's killer growls. Listen out for the ballad Nothing Remains, or experimental track Worms On Concrete 2.0. To buy a CD or a downloadable album, go to flawedelement.bandcamp.com - My Paper (December 2011)

Flawed Element fait dans la simplicité pour mieux mettre en relief une certaine efficacité

Si dans certains pays le metal industriel est roi, il ne l'est pas forcément ailleurs, et encore moins à Singapour, petit pays semblant de plus en plus prendre de l'assurance pour nous présenter toute une vague de nouveaux groupes plus ou moins talentueux. Flawed Element fait partie de ces jeunes formations essayant de mettre en valeur une musique devenue commune avec le temps, tout en y ajoutant une certaine patte personnelle et sans tomber dans une quelconque forme d'obsolescence.

S'inspirant de groupes américains très connus tels que Linkin Park ou Breaking Benjamin, les singapouriens se sont arrangés pour faire un mélange plutôt habile de metal industriel et de metal alternatif, tout en incorporant des éléments digne du metal moderne que l'on entend assez souvent. Ajoutez à cela une très bonne production et un professionnalisme sans équivoque, octroyant à ce « Breaking the Silence » un son résolument moderne et puissant.

Il était donc temps pour eux de briser le silence après trois années de formation et quelques petits concerts. Cet opus est un concept album où l'auditeur suit un certain personnage, de son réveil après un long sommeil à la découverte d'un monde au bord de l'extinction jusqu'à sa mission qui est de le rétablir. Ce concept peut rappeler à certains celui de la trilogie Matrix, et la pochette bleue ressemble étrangement à ce fond vert où se superposent des chiffres et des lettres, telle une ligne de code.

Dès le premier morceau, tout devient alors clair, et on voit immédiatement à quoi nous avons à faire. Intro industrielle mécanique, puis couplet très accessible et posé, pour un refrain facile à retenir aux riffs simples mais tranchants où se mêlent des sons électroniques et une voix hargneuse mais passe partout.

Flawed Element semble avoir emprunté le chemin de la facilité, tout d'abord par le mélange des styles mais aussi par les mélodies parfaitement minimalistes. Toutefois, on se surprend à mémoriser certains passages, comme ceux de « Scars », le hit par excellence de cet album. Efficace, rentre dedans, il démontre une véritable puissance des claviers et une modulation du chant forte intéressante, passant d'une voix claire à une voix criarde bien hargneuse.

Hormis cela, l'auditeur passe d'un morceau à l'autre sans trop difficulté, dans la mesure où chacun est une suite logique, histoire de suivre le concept sus-cité. « Desolation », par exemple, montre un côté plus écorché et mélancolique, notamment grâce à l'apparition du piano. Mais en général, les sonorités industrielles ne sont pas de trop, elles ne sont pas non plus omniprésentes mais servent à poser le concept et à renforcer quelques ambiances tout au plus. Rien de très grandiloquent de ce côté ci donc (« Worms on Concrete »).

En clair, Flawed Element fait dans la simplicité pour mieux mettre en relief une certaine efficacité, mais ne se démarque pas pour autant, même si l'assemblage proposé reste intéressant et maîtrisé. Ce n'est qu'après tout un premier jet, de qualité qui plus est, on attend donc la suite pour voir de quoi sont capables ces singapouriens. - Spirit Of Metal (June 2011)

Flawed Element have the technical skills and stage presence, and are very dynamic.

-EDDINO ABDUL HADI - The Straits Times (August 28 2009, Page D3)