Chthonic's most recent album, released last year was the first of theirs that I heard (I was at an album launch in Kaohsiung where I bought it), and I was impressed. Small towns in England have larger metal scene than Taiwan, but this was no amateurish clone bands record. I'll attempt to give you an impression of it starting from the outside and working inwards.
The packaging of mine, the Taiwanese digipack issue, is a nice dark blue, with characters that look suitably brutal as if painted with blood, though sadly they seem to have ditched their necro-black metal logo for a more legible one. Bound hands fill the front, looking battered and possibly dead, like those of a prisoner tortured to death, no doubt to symbolise something from the theme of the album (which I'll get to later). On the back with a sky all dark and brooding is a scene that in the colours and to those outside Taiwan might look rather barren with a ruined house, but this is actually quite a typically Taiwanese landscape for the fertile, intensely farmed west coast.
Inside there are some typical band photos of them in their gear, including the drummer's bizarre spiky mask (which looks less ridiculous close up - it has a traditional demonic face on it). The backgrounds to fit the theme - guns, and Doris the bassist apparently having just beheaded the statue of Chang Kai-shek, the former dictator of Taiwan.
Since mine is the Taiwanese issue, the sleeve notes and track listing are all in Chinese, which sadly I'm not fluent in enough to read or understand the lyrics when listening to it (although I can rarely make out lyrics even when sung cleanly in English, so I'd have no chance with Chinese black metal vocals). Luckily though, this is the age of the internet so I can read the translations online - I heard the English version of one of the tracks on the Australian radio, and it seemed pretty well done, not much different from in Chinese, but I think I prefer Freddy's singing in his native Chinese for some reason.
The concept for the album is based around the 1947 uprising by the Taiwanese against the invading army of the Chinese Kuomintang who were retreating from the mainland in the face of the Communist army. It's not really a historical album though, as it's about young Tsing-guam's quest to go down into the Taoist hells to find the Book of Life and Death and change events. Actually that would make a pretty good film… Anyway, I can't judge the Chinese lyrics, but the translations actually seemed pretty good, full of rage, vengeance and nostalgic melancholy - exactly what I want from black metal really.
Put the CD in and press play. Turn it up a bit because the start is low atmospheric noise, joined by whispering, crackling of a fire, then some sobbing. And then boom! Tremolo riffs, blast beats and grimmed vocals from the beginning with "Blooming Blades". No wasting time with overly long, pompous introductions, they take us straight into black metal bliss, and immediately throw in the erhu, the distinctive mournful Chinese violin, so you know this is something different from the start. They have a story to tell though, so you're not just being brutalised and screamed at, the riffs and tempos even in this first song are varied and don't drag on. I've mentioned before in my review of this band, but you can really hear Freddy's range as a vocalist on this album, slipping easily from grim shriek to growl, and it works really well.
And so it is with the rest of the album, each song with its own unique feel, none overly long or too short, they all feel pretty much as long as they should be. Production is clean and well-balanced, so it sounds warm and smooth - no fake necro-tin shed recording for these guys. The producer is Rob Caggiano of Anthrax who has produced a number of albums including some by Cradle of Filth, so this is to be expected a suppose. Despite comparisons though, I don't think this album sounds anymore like CoF than Principle of Evil Made Flesh sounds like Emperor or Burzum. One thing that I do like is that the keyboards are not dominating, all the instruments are nicely balanced
It is also nicely structured: after the intro there are five decent songs telling of the reasons and start of the quest, culminating in Sing-Ling Temple, a particularly angry song ("terror was born by the pale white sun" is a reference to the flag of the Koumintang, which now features as part of the Taiwanese flag), then a four minute calm, mournful instrumental, mostly erhu with some drums and muted storm sound effects. Take a breath. Relax. Make some tea. Are you ready?
Because next, warned only by a brief keyboard intro, you are assaulted by the melodic brutality of possibly my favourite song of the album, Fourty-Nine Theurgy Chains (whatever that means), as our hero gets deeper into the hells. I say possibly, because it's about even between that one and the next one, Rise of the Shadows. The second is less relentlessly brutal, but has a certain aggressive, militaristic groove to it, offset by the erhu, which fits the lyrics about ghost troops coming from the mirror (something like that anyway). Basically, it's awesome.
And you won't get any rest until the end of the album because the next two tracks are not throwaways or winding down. The protagonist of the story is now descending well into hell and … well I won't spoil it, it's a pretty good story. Buy the album, read the lyrics, listen to it, several times, as it grows on you.
