- Deal With It

- Anchor

- Bitter End

- Awaken Demons

- Restraint

- Self Torture

- The Guilt Show

- Countdown Records

- Concrete Block

- The Secret

- At Half Mast

- Angelica Mariner

- Justice

- Run With The Hunted

- Ritual

- Killing The Dream

- L.e.a.r.n.

- Linha De Frente

- Outbreak

- Panic

- Death Is Not Glamorous VS Stolen Bikes Ride Faster

- Underdog

- Betrayed

- Doomriders

- Black Friday '29

- No Innocent Victim

- Dead Stop

- To Kill VS Slowmotion Apocalypse

- Justice

- Trial

- Another Breath

- Gonna Fall Hard VS Ed

- The Secret VS The Setup

- Good Clean Fun

- Converge

- Bones Brigade

- Donny Brook

- Strength Approach

- Purification

- The Difference VS The Miracle

- Terror

- Cataract

- Over My Dead Body

- Internal Affairs

- Inked In Blood

- Some Kind Of Hate

- New Found Glory

- Die!

- Agnostic Front

- Coalesce

- No Warning

- Shai Hulud

- Death Threat

- Champion

- Hatebreed

- Subzero

- The Promise

- The Beautiful Mistake

- Beloved

- Nodes Of Ranvier

- Comeback Kid

- Bleeding Through

- Sick Of It All

- Every Time I Die

- Give Up The Ghost

- The Dillinger Escape Plan

- Strike Anywhere

- The Hope Conspiracy

- Coheed & Cambria

- Thursday

- Stretch Arm Strong

- Himsa

Introduce the band to someone who doesn't know you. How long you guys have been a band, where are you from and who is who in the band?

Hi, we're RESTRAINT and we hail from the beautiful city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Restraint have been a band since 2000 but it's only in 2005 when we are really active as a band. With this current line up, we've been together for almost 2 years right now. In the band, we've got me (Ijam) on vocals, Mizan and Afwan on guitars, Ady do bass and Apeq play drums.

You guys recently released "Pure From Blood". How are the reactions?

"Pure From Blood" is our first debut album and debut release under Dyslexia Records. We have been undergone some hard and good times during recording session, and basically we've delivered our hardwork, struggle, hardship and best work to this release. The response that we're getting is very positive and it's basically encourage and motivate us.

Did you have anything other previous works out?

Definitely, yes. In 2005, our first demo (with 3 songs in it) was release by my own label, Persistence Records and in 2006, it was my label again to release a limited split demo (with another brutal hardcore band called Deadscore) during our debut appearance in Singapore. Both demo has been sold out, and yes, the response is quite impressive as well.

How would you describe Restraint to someone who hasn't listened to you?

We're playing straight forward hardcore with some traditional to mosh metal sound; basically combining the intensity of NY influences hardcore sound with Slayer fill in it.

What are you lyrics about? What's your goal when writing lyrics? Expressing yourself or influencing the reader?

When I wrote the lyrics, it's basically to tell what I want to reach with hardcore, what hardcore has given to me, what I could give back to the current state of hardcore scene and most of all, to motivates the kids when they read the lyrics. Some may come out with lyrics and tell about restriction and something like don't do this, don't do that.... but thru Restraint, what is most important when the kids read our lyrics, in hope that they could feel the same passion, energy and the beauty of the hardcore scene itself. I don't want to be a preacher, for me, to work together to built a greater scene is our (the entire scene) responsibility. We couldn't afford to have another separate scene (which is happen), but to minimize it and therefore to understand the importance of working together. Isn't it nice to work in a team?

Where do you guys get inspired from and what are some bands that you look up to?

All of us come from different backgrounds and music preferences but when it come to the bands, all of us are agreed that some band that inspired us includes bands such like Madball, Hatebreed, Terror, Stampin Ground, Sick of it All to Slayer. For me, these bands have given so much inspiration towards our music and our love to the hardcore/metal scene and this is how the inspiration growth.

What hardcore means to you and how do you find the current state of hardcore/metal worldwide?

Hardcore means a lot to me; from music, life and attitude. It's basically the scene which appreciate much more on friendship and to work together to reach the same goal. It's kind of music that requires both music and performance endless energy and it's the scene that taught us to lead for a positive lifestyle. For me, the current state of hardcore/metal scene is now growing big and much bigger, and even you could notice there's a lot of bands which came from hardcore scene is basically surfacing to the main arena; such as Killswitch Engage who won themselves Grammy thingy, Walls of Jericho/Bury Your Dead playing in Family Values tour (with Korn etc), Bleeding Through tour with HIM, Throwdown to tour with Machine Head, Hatebreed with Slayer (and even Mr Jasta himself is a host for MTV Headbanger's Ball) and so much more. This is a very positive things going on with all these bands and believe it that it's basically encourage more kids to know more about hardcore. From this bigger bands, then they could dig to the smaller bands and therefore find the best inside hardcore/metal scene. This is some best example that I could quote you about the bands who basically given back the scene what the scene have given them. Yes, it's to help back the kids!

What about the Malaysian scene? What are some good bands from Malaysia that we should know?

I like this question since for me, most people out there didn't realize or noticed that there's a scene in Malaysia. The hardcore scene in Malaysia has been started since early 90s actually, and it has been growing rapidly ever since. I couldn't say that the scene is big here, but it's basically growing. Lots of hardcore shows and festival; recording label, bands, clothing company, show promoters started by the hardcore scene in order to make it bigger and better, more participation and work inside the scene. There's some goods bands that you may check out in Malaysia, such as:-
second combat - Malaysia veterans straight edge old school band. They have toured in Europe last July/August 2007 and have been more than 10 releases so far, been in the scene since 1996 and I could say, one of the most well known old school band in this region.
cassandra - most probably Malaysia's biggest and most well known metalcore bands. Admired by many for their musical direction and become inspiration by lots of kids who love metal influence hardcore bands.
xelevenx - young, straight edge kids from Klang who play modern old school sound ala Comeback Kid to Champion, they are always one of the crowd favourite on stage.
kids on the move - another straight edge band from klang who play modern melodic old school sound ala Verse, Backsight to Comeback Kid.
Deadscore - brutal, tough guy to beatdown sound of hardcore which remind you to Bury Your Blood, Black My Heart to old Throwdown. awesome bands!
First Base - newborn modern hc with sound direction to the likes of FC Five, Give up the ghost etc. Should check em out!
Elegy - a brand scandinavian melodic metal combined with hardcore mosh sound you could picture this band. If you're a fans of Unearth, At The Gates, Bleeding Through then check em out!
Forsaken - a new bands from the ex-members of old bands in Malaysia scene, playing melodic to modern metal hardcore sound, for the fans of Killswitch Engage to Haste the Day
and more bands that I thought I couldn't afford to sum all of them overhere, anyway, you may check out more bands in Malaysia in myspace since lots of bands right here do have their own myspace accounts.

What's next for Restraint concerning touring? Do you guys have any euro tour plans? Does your cd have distribution in Europe? Where can euro kids buy your cd?

There's several plan about doing tour that we may did some around end of this year and next year; from local to south east asia region first. Definitely the chance to play in Europe/America/Japan would be a great experiences and exposure for us, and hopefully it would happen soon.
About the CD distribution, yes, it will be distributed in Europe region as well, and it should be distributed by Unity HxC (France), Still Life (Italy) and Goodlife (Belgium). I'm not sure if it's already have in stocks but you may contact our label, Dyslexia Records (email: info@dyslexiarecords.com) for more information on distribution list. Other than that, you may now get our CD through Interpunk.com (USA) or you may purchase online through Dyslexia Records via paypal.

Close this the way you want..
Thanks a lot for Save Your Scene for this interview, really appreciate it. Thanks a lot for everyone who put their interest towards our bands and our releases and thanks a lot for your support. Check us out in any shows and for those who want to know more about us, you may visit our myspace and trig.com page:-
www.myspace.com/restrainthc
www.trig.com/restraint
or you may send your email to: restraint@dyslexiarecords.com
Thanks again and be safe!

Isaak