If your band wants to stand out amongst the legions of similar sounding acts regurgitating the same old sounds and influences, gambus indie is certainly an option.

Jakarta-based foursome Tropical Thrust may not pay much mind to how their music would be described, but with a mix of Malay via Arabic traditional gambus music and modern indie-rock — think loud shimmering guitars endlessly echoing between clanging drums — it would be impossible to not speak about the novelty value of their sound.

Formed in 2009, the band have been gigging around the city, trying to make name for themselves one show at a time. While they’ve mostly kept a lower profile throughout the years, the release of their self-titled debut album through Don’t Fade Away Records ensures more attention will be paid towards the band.

“We grew up with Middle Eastern music,” explains lead vocalist and guitarist Fairuz, who like the rest of the band members, prefers to go by just his first name.

 “We were all initially members of a gambus troupe in our village. But we were then exposed to a lot of other genres of music, from metal, shoegaze, to indie pop — both local bands like Sore to international bands like Bad Religion or Toe. So our sound is a mix of noise, echoes, reverbs, with traditional and modern guitars.”

The band’s most obvious and direct influence, however, is the Texan “post-rock” band Explosions in the Sky, which instrumental interplay and soft-loud dynamics is something Tropical Thrust clearly embraces, though without ever forsaking their Middle Eastern flair for melodies.

The band cops to wearing their influences on their sleeve, but are eager to put their own stamp to their songs. 

“Songs like ‘Hampakata’ and ‘Galaman Galbu’ can be considered the common thread within this album,” guitarist Teji says, “Even though we are ‘tempted’ to replicate the beauty of bands such as [local acts] the Sastro, or Sore, it is through those two songs that you can really hear our personal uniqueness.”

“Whenever we write newer materials, we always refer to those two songs.”

Indeed, tracks such as the opener “Land” evoke all kinds of influences, with the most obvious trait being a sense of pulsating momentum that looks to indie rock for dynamics and shoegaze music for atmosphere.

The crunchy “Kamikaze” opens at breakneck speed before slowing down for an introspective verse, while “Saima” is all dreamy vocals and twinkling guitars. “Hampakata” is bright, strummed guitars and twin vocals atop punchy drums and fluid basslines. Closer “Merapi” is all about going from whisper quiet to explosively loud. 

Vocalist and main guitarist, Fairiz often brings the key idea to his bandmates, before everyone else then fleshes out the song together. There are very rarely conflicts, as the band’s creative mindset is very often aligned. 

“Because of how we were all members of the same gambus troupe, we are intuitively attuned to each other’s musical wants and needs,” Fairiz says. 

True to their sense of personality, Tropical Thrust pride themselves with introspective lyrics that dive deep into the band’s psyche, often self-critical.

“We always try to dig deep into our own lives, while we also try to react towards our surroundings,” Fairiz says.

“In the song ‘Merapi,’ we try to pray and give encouragement to the victims of the Merapi tragedy.” 

“And in the song ‘Kamikaze,’ we were inspired by a friend from the label who was carrying around a stack of books, one of them being a history of Japanese air fighters who live with the samurai spirit and their ‘loyalty to the end,’ ” explains Fairiz, still clearly mesmerized by the topic. 

Perhaps the band’s most biting song, however, isn’t one that looks inward but outward. 

“ ‘Telanjang’ [‘Nude’] is a song where we look at the culture of corruptors and the phenomena of it. We look at things vertically and horizontally.”