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Monday 20 September 2010
Review: Seediq Bale
Thursday 10 June 2010
Review: Mirror of Retribution
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.
Thursday 20 May 2010
Ronnie James Dio RIP
Like millions I was sad to hear of heavy metal legend Ronnie James Dio's death from stomach cancer on Sunday the 16th of May. I'm not going to say any more, other than to recommend this week's The Racket, a 3 hour weekly metal show on Australia's Triple J Radio, which is always a good listen and this week is completely dedicated to Dio. You can stream it from here until next Tuesday. If your internet connection is erratic, you want to listen to it on your MP3 player or you won't have time to listen to it before it changes to next week's, you can download a free program such as GetASFStream to save the whole show to your computer.
Monday 19 April 2010
Gig: Spring Scream 2010
Every year at the start of April there is a music festival in Taiwan called Spring Scream. It takes place in the very southern tip, in a beautiful hilly park close to one of the main tourist destinations, Kenting, with stages nestled in little hollows naturally insulated from each other by the geography. If you want to explore the Taiwan music scene in one weekend, this is the time and place to do it.
Don't expect it to be the equivalent of Glastonbury or other major music festivals -it might be the biggest music festival in Taiwan, but it is still in Taiwan, so it has more the feel of a small, amateurish, local festival. If you want electronic music or Taiwanese pop, there are other parties going on in the area, but apart from a DJ stage Spring Scream is mostly live music based, which is why I went. Most bands are indie, but there are other genres, like hip hop, reggae, punk and - yes, of course, otherwise it wouldn't be on this blog - metal.
Unfortunately the program you get is not particularly informative: it tells you the band name in English and Chinese, the time, the stage, and that's it. Last year there wasn't even that. To know even vaguely what a band sounds like if you've never heard them before, even if you go to the website, the only thing to do is listen to their MP3s. Last year I missed any metal bands that were playing, so this year in preparation I spent the two weeks before methodically going through all the bands on the site.
Well, not all the bands listed online were in the final program, and not all the bands listed had been online, so I may have missed some, but when I got there I had 5 at least vaguely heavy bands I wanted to see: Emerging From the Cocoon(破繭而出), Cheeze (their Chinese name 去死 translates literally as "go die" which as far as I know is the equivalent of "fuck off", which is much more metal then their English name), Solemn (恕), Eye of Violence, and Dept Creatures (怪物百貨 - this last band from Japan).
Solemn (I bit doomy from what I remember) were playing on the Friday before we got there, Eye of Violence (pretty good melodic death metal) didn't show, at least not at the time and place advertised, and I missed Dept Creatures (hard rock rather than full on metal). This left just two bands, both playing in the middle of the afternoon: Cheeze on Saturday, and Emerging from the Cocoon on Sunday.
QuSi
I missed the start of QuSi (I don't think I can bring myself to keep typing "Cheeze"), as did many people judging by the crowd, but not much. Black clothes and long hair was the look here, dampened slightly by sparkles on some of the tops and the lead vocalist being barefoot, but not too bad.
In terms of sound they're fairly standard black metal. They had a keyboard, which was prominent but not dominant, and fairly good melodies. I was not sure about the vocalist. When he was doing the classic black metal grimming, it was great, no problem, and even the occasional move into pompous operatic style vocals worked quite well. What didn't work for me was the more old school metal wailing, which seemed weak and off key, but maybe he'll improve. At the end he invited some girl on stage (apart from some pink stripes in her hair you'd never guess she was into metal, but for all I know she could be a major player in the Taipei scene) but either her voice was weak or the mic was turned down too low because she didn't seem to add much to the sound.
In fact in general the sound quality was not great, but none of the bands had much time to set up so I'm not sure if this was their fault or the festival's. Whatever the reason, I couldn't make out any standout songs, riffs or otherwise. There didn't seem to be any distinctive feel to them that set the apart. On the other hand, while I felt I could be at any local black metal gig in the world, it wasn't a bad metal gig. They had the balance of instruments down pretty well, there were different dynamics, and the vocals were varied. Despite not standing out, songs were not samey and didn't seem derivative, at least not of any one particular band, and they seemed to be trying stuff out, so there seemed to have a lot of potential.
So, if you're in Taiwan and they have a gig on they'd definitely put on a decent show, and maybe if you hear of them in a few years time, hopefully with a better English name, they could well be worth checking out more seriously. For the moment though, I wouldn't spend too much time or money on getting a CD if you're not at one of their gigs already.
Emerging From The Cocoon
From listening online (and the awesomeness of the name) the band I was more excited about was Emerging From The Cocoon, whom I had seen mentioned on Taipei Metal and other places. I'd seen them hanging around the day before - I didn't know it was them but I assumed they must be a metal band because they were dressed all in black, most of them with long black hair, and a couple had T-shirts - I'm not sure for which band but it may have been Behemoth since they came here a few months ago. Then on Sunday they were wearing their own T-shirts (and baseball cap) with a suitably brutal and indecipherable logo, and handing out free demo CDs to get people to come.
Well at first I thought they had shitty stage presence because they just went on stage and started playing, fairly still, but it seemed these first two songs were just to sound check. They gave the sound guys a CD and atmospheric intro music started, escalating into screams - I'm sure this would be awesome at night with a darkened stage, but the effect was a bit lost at 5 in the afternoon under tropical sun in a park.
And then there was metal \m/ \m/! Awesome riffs that overcame the poor sound quality, sudden well executed time changes, brutal drumming and all held together tightly with plenty of on stage movement. The vocals were also awesome, ranging from a classic death/grind growl to black metal screeching, and occasionally a sound like a pig being slaughtered, half the time with the guy's hair fully over his face so he looked like the girl in Ring.
Pure brutal death metal was what EFTC seem to be aiming for, and it's what they deliver pretty well. There were crazy insane fast bits, good headbanging riffs in between, everything you want really. Admittedly you could be at a death metal gig pretty much anywhere in the world, but it would be a good death metal gig - maybe not Behemoth, but a very good local DM band who would have a decent following.
And even in Taiwan, they seem to have one. For a festival dominated by indie, quite a sizable crowd gathered to watch them. Some were probably just drawn by curiosity (in the case of some foreigners there, possibly to take the piss by their over the top cheers, or maybe they were just drunk), but others seemed to have come specially to see them, and many stayed until the end. There was no mosh pit or even much headbanging, perhaps because of the heat.
It was a good set, and they're well worth checking out online or better still live. If they carry on like this in a few years I think they could be as big as Chthonic, at least within Taiwan.
BB Bomb
Luckily I like indie too, as otherwise I'd have been pretty annoyed with only two metal bands playing 45 minutes each. There were also a couple of good punk bands which I'll briefly review here since I think the line between punk and metal is or should be blurred.
My favourite was BB Bomb (BB彈). I missed them last year because of the lack of a decent program, and since then from what I remember they have changed a bit. I was under the impression they were an all girl outfit, but now it seems they're two guys and a girl.
he is the singer and guitarist though, and they play really good, catchy but not too catchy, riot grrrl style dirty fast punk. No over indulgence in lengthy songs, being cute or anything here, its short, sharp and screamy. Her voice isn't great but its perfect for the music. If you like punk, go see them, they're by far the best punk band I've heard in Taiwan, and deserve to become an international cult band.
Inquiry 104
Surprisingly Taiwan is not collectively addicted to pop-punk, which you'd think would suit people here rather well. But if you want a fix of catchy, melodic, poppy punk you could do a lot worse than this band. Inquiry 104 (查號104) include 3 brothers. They sing pretty well, do cool moves on stage (including sunchronised steps and jumps), have fun catchy riffs and interact with the audience.
Other bands
Last year the trend was for "post" bands - post-rock, post-metal, post-emo, post-britpop and even post-post - which just means instrumental. There weren't so many this year, or at least I didn't go to watch as many, but two good ones are Sun of Morning (晨曦光廊) and Bugs of Phonon (聲子蟲) . Another couple of bands in the indie/punk/rock genres that I missed or only caught the end of but sounded good online were The Broken Flowers (碎紙花 ) and Cherryboom (櫻桃幫 ).
Of the "foreigner bands" (bands made up of foreigners here for work, study etc.) one of the best is Divebomb. Personally I wouldn't bother seeing them at a festival if there was anything else on because they play in Tainan a lot, and in the two years I've been here I don't think their set has changed. They have 3 songs I recognise, one about watching someone pee, one about how the drummer looks like Orlando Bloom (he doesn't), and one about fucking a cat. Yes, they're punk. Good fun to watch, and make a great night out. Much better than the other "foreigner bands" like Dr Eggs or Sons of Homer, who are both shit.
The best band at Spring Scream this year though was one called Matzka (瑪斯卡), an aboriginal reggae band from Taidong. Fantastic musicians, they blend aboriginal harmonies with reggae and elements of hiphop, and it works really well.
OK, that's it for my review of Spring Scream 2010, I'm not going to review every band. This week or next week I'll start reviewing some albums - I have two Chthonic records and the EFTC promo I got at the festival, so plenty to get on with.
Don't expect it to be the equivalent of Glastonbury or other major music festivals -it might be the biggest music festival in Taiwan, but it is still in Taiwan, so it has more the feel of a small, amateurish, local festival. If you want electronic music or Taiwanese pop, there are other parties going on in the area, but apart from a DJ stage Spring Scream is mostly live music based, which is why I went. Most bands are indie, but there are other genres, like hip hop, reggae, punk and - yes, of course, otherwise it wouldn't be on this blog - metal.
Unfortunately the program you get is not particularly informative: it tells you the band name in English and Chinese, the time, the stage, and that's it. Last year there wasn't even that. To know even vaguely what a band sounds like if you've never heard them before, even if you go to the website, the only thing to do is listen to their MP3s. Last year I missed any metal bands that were playing, so this year in preparation I spent the two weeks before methodically going through all the bands on the site.
Well, not all the bands listed online were in the final program, and not all the bands listed had been online, so I may have missed some, but when I got there I had 5 at least vaguely heavy bands I wanted to see: Emerging From the Cocoon(破繭而出), Cheeze (their Chinese name 去死 translates literally as "go die" which as far as I know is the equivalent of "fuck off", which is much more metal then their English name), Solemn (恕), Eye of Violence, and Dept Creatures (怪物百貨 - this last band from Japan).
Solemn (I bit doomy from what I remember) were playing on the Friday before we got there, Eye of Violence (pretty good melodic death metal) didn't show, at least not at the time and place advertised, and I missed Dept Creatures (hard rock rather than full on metal). This left just two bands, both playing in the middle of the afternoon: Cheeze on Saturday, and Emerging from the Cocoon on Sunday.
QuSi
I missed the start of QuSi (I don't think I can bring myself to keep typing "Cheeze"), as did many people judging by the crowd, but not much. Black clothes and long hair was the look here, dampened slightly by sparkles on some of the tops and the lead vocalist being barefoot, but not too bad.
In terms of sound they're fairly standard black metal. They had a keyboard, which was prominent but not dominant, and fairly good melodies. I was not sure about the vocalist. When he was doing the classic black metal grimming, it was great, no problem, and even the occasional move into pompous operatic style vocals worked quite well. What didn't work for me was the more old school metal wailing, which seemed weak and off key, but maybe he'll improve. At the end he invited some girl on stage (apart from some pink stripes in her hair you'd never guess she was into metal, but for all I know she could be a major player in the Taipei scene) but either her voice was weak or the mic was turned down too low because she didn't seem to add much to the sound.
In fact in general the sound quality was not great, but none of the bands had much time to set up so I'm not sure if this was their fault or the festival's. Whatever the reason, I couldn't make out any standout songs, riffs or otherwise. There didn't seem to be any distinctive feel to them that set the apart. On the other hand, while I felt I could be at any local black metal gig in the world, it wasn't a bad metal gig. They had the balance of instruments down pretty well, there were different dynamics, and the vocals were varied. Despite not standing out, songs were not samey and didn't seem derivative, at least not of any one particular band, and they seemed to be trying stuff out, so there seemed to have a lot of potential.
So, if you're in Taiwan and they have a gig on they'd definitely put on a decent show, and maybe if you hear of them in a few years time, hopefully with a better English name, they could well be worth checking out more seriously. For the moment though, I wouldn't spend too much time or money on getting a CD if you're not at one of their gigs already.
Emerging From The Cocoon
From listening online (and the awesomeness of the name) the band I was more excited about was Emerging From The Cocoon, whom I had seen mentioned on Taipei Metal and other places. I'd seen them hanging around the day before - I didn't know it was them but I assumed they must be a metal band because they were dressed all in black, most of them with long black hair, and a couple had T-shirts - I'm not sure for which band but it may have been Behemoth since they came here a few months ago. Then on Sunday they were wearing their own T-shirts (and baseball cap) with a suitably brutal and indecipherable logo, and handing out free demo CDs to get people to come.
Well at first I thought they had shitty stage presence because they just went on stage and started playing, fairly still, but it seemed these first two songs were just to sound check. They gave the sound guys a CD and atmospheric intro music started, escalating into screams - I'm sure this would be awesome at night with a darkened stage, but the effect was a bit lost at 5 in the afternoon under tropical sun in a park.
And then there was metal \m/ \m/! Awesome riffs that overcame the poor sound quality, sudden well executed time changes, brutal drumming and all held together tightly with plenty of on stage movement. The vocals were also awesome, ranging from a classic death/grind growl to black metal screeching, and occasionally a sound like a pig being slaughtered, half the time with the guy's hair fully over his face so he looked like the girl in Ring.
Pure brutal death metal was what EFTC seem to be aiming for, and it's what they deliver pretty well. There were crazy insane fast bits, good headbanging riffs in between, everything you want really. Admittedly you could be at a death metal gig pretty much anywhere in the world, but it would be a good death metal gig - maybe not Behemoth, but a very good local DM band who would have a decent following.
And even in Taiwan, they seem to have one. For a festival dominated by indie, quite a sizable crowd gathered to watch them. Some were probably just drawn by curiosity (in the case of some foreigners there, possibly to take the piss by their over the top cheers, or maybe they were just drunk), but others seemed to have come specially to see them, and many stayed until the end. There was no mosh pit or even much headbanging, perhaps because of the heat.
It was a good set, and they're well worth checking out online or better still live. If they carry on like this in a few years I think they could be as big as Chthonic, at least within Taiwan.
BB Bomb
Luckily I like indie too, as otherwise I'd have been pretty annoyed with only two metal bands playing 45 minutes each. There were also a couple of good punk bands which I'll briefly review here since I think the line between punk and metal is or should be blurred.
My favourite was BB Bomb (BB彈). I missed them last year because of the lack of a decent program, and since then from what I remember they have changed a bit. I was under the impression they were an all girl outfit, but now it seems they're two guys and a girl.
he is the singer and guitarist though, and they play really good, catchy but not too catchy, riot grrrl style dirty fast punk. No over indulgence in lengthy songs, being cute or anything here, its short, sharp and screamy. Her voice isn't great but its perfect for the music. If you like punk, go see them, they're by far the best punk band I've heard in Taiwan, and deserve to become an international cult band.
Inquiry 104
Surprisingly Taiwan is not collectively addicted to pop-punk, which you'd think would suit people here rather well. But if you want a fix of catchy, melodic, poppy punk you could do a lot worse than this band. Inquiry 104 (查號104) include 3 brothers. They sing pretty well, do cool moves on stage (including sunchronised steps and jumps), have fun catchy riffs and interact with the audience.
Other bands
Last year the trend was for "post" bands - post-rock, post-metal, post-emo, post-britpop and even post-post - which just means instrumental. There weren't so many this year, or at least I didn't go to watch as many, but two good ones are Sun of Morning (晨曦光廊) and Bugs of Phonon (聲子蟲) . Another couple of bands in the indie/punk/rock genres that I missed or only caught the end of but sounded good online were The Broken Flowers (碎紙花 ) and Cherryboom (櫻桃幫 ).
Of the "foreigner bands" (bands made up of foreigners here for work, study etc.) one of the best is Divebomb. Personally I wouldn't bother seeing them at a festival if there was anything else on because they play in Tainan a lot, and in the two years I've been here I don't think their set has changed. They have 3 songs I recognise, one about watching someone pee, one about how the drummer looks like Orlando Bloom (he doesn't), and one about fucking a cat. Yes, they're punk. Good fun to watch, and make a great night out. Much better than the other "foreigner bands" like Dr Eggs or Sons of Homer, who are both shit.
The best band at Spring Scream this year though was one called Matzka (瑪斯卡), an aboriginal reggae band from Taidong. Fantastic musicians, they blend aboriginal harmonies with reggae and elements of hiphop, and it works really well.
OK, that's it for my review of Spring Scream 2010, I'm not going to review every band. This week or next week I'll start reviewing some albums - I have two Chthonic records and the EFTC promo I got at the festival, so plenty to get on with.
Tuesday 13 April 2010
Gig: Chthonic Album Launch, Kaohsiung, 15th of August, 2009 Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Before I start this review I should declare that this was the first metal gig I'd been too since Marduk came to Perth at the end of 2007, so I was inevitably going to be pretty forgiving. I was suddenly seized by the urge to see some live metal, and after a surprisingly short search through sites I'd found before but not looked at too closely, I found this gig by Taiwan's biggest, most famous, and I would see best metal band, Chthonic, in the city only an hour from home the following weekend.
Taiwan is not set up for metal, especially outside of Taipei, so this gig wasn't a normal venue or pub like it might be elsewhere in the world, but a warehouse by the docks in Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second biggest city. It was in a cool arty area, but since it started while the sun was still up, it didn't feel too metal.
There was a big cavernous room, so you'd need a few thousand people to fill it. I'm not too good a judge of crowds, but I'd guess five hundred to a thousand were there. Not a lot for the biggest metal band in the country, but not bad for a place where every third song you hear as you walk down the street is Lady Gaga. Even the toilets showed you how small the metal scene is here: they were outside and there were no back stage ones, so when I went before things started I was standing between members of the band in full costume.
The crowd was also different to what you might expect. Elsewhere you'd probably find a mostly male crowd in various metal t-shirts. There were a few going for that look, and there was a bit more black than you typically find, but they were in the minority: there were also a lot of couples, and in general it would have been impossible to tell that they were going to the gig if they weren't queued up at the entrance. A more interesting feature was that lots of people brought bags of "ghost money". This comes in big yellow wads which you're meant to burn for your ancestors to use in the afterlife.
No support band, and not even a DJ or playlist while we waited - just a Marilyn Manson album, not even slightly grim and necro. All that aside, the entrance was good and atmospheric: banners hanging behind the stage, mournful erhu intro music, darkened stage, etc. When they came on they had good presence, not arrogant but with a decent amount of movement. Their current costumes a much more subdued than I'd heard, they didn't really have much "Ghost Paint" (like corpse paint but based on the guardians of Daoist hell) and had opted instead for just plain black. There was a bit of darkness around the eyes, some kind of clothe with writing on it completely covering CJ the keyboardist's face and a strange spiky mask on the drummer, but certainly not some horrible attempt to look like Immortal.
So on to the most important part: the music. It was awesome! I hadn't yet had a chance to listen to more than a couple of MP3s once or twice on their website, but I could still distinguish individual songs (unlike some bands whose songs end up blending together and sounding the same live). As a group they were very tight. Dani's drumming was damn good, Jesse played some awesome riffs and the occasional solo, but clearly knew his limits and didn't ruin things by over reaching himself. The keyboards were there, but not dominating, which in most bands that aren't Emperor is how I like them. Doris' bass was good I guess, I'm not that great a judge of bass, but I can't say her vocals were very strong - maybe it was the mix, I don't know. Freddy's vocals had a pretty good range and were convincingly grim but with their own sound. He also played their trademark erhu himself, and played it well (which is harder than it sounds - it takes a lot of training to get it to not sound like fingernails down a blackboard).
Unfortunately my Chinese is not good enough to understand speeches, as a number of times in pauses between songs he would address the crowd. I got the gist that some was about politics, some was about the recent huge typhoon (Morakot) and some was about it being nice to be back somewhere he could understand what people said after an Australian tour. It didn't seem too preachy though, having a bit of back and forth with the crowd, some jokes and laughter, it was a pretty cool atmosphere really.
The crowd was interesting to watch too - it seemed despite their unmetal attire (as mine is) they weren't there for the novelty, but genuinely liked the music. The sung along (Taiwan is a karaoke country after all), nodded along a bit, but mostly seemed fairly static in their enjoyment, apart from the enthusiastic throwing of ghost money in the air. Metal is metal though, so for a few songs at least some were unable to resist the urge to mosh, and after politely asking non-moshers to step back we had a frantic time smashing against each other on the carpet of yellow paper. I should have worn shoes though - it's hard and painful to mosh properly in sandals!
They didn't do an encore, but they did have an intermission in the middle and must have played for about two hours. I certainly wasn't disappointed, and recommend anyone to go and see them - just bring your bundles of ghost money.
Taiwan is not set up for metal, especially outside of Taipei, so this gig wasn't a normal venue or pub like it might be elsewhere in the world, but a warehouse by the docks in Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second biggest city. It was in a cool arty area, but since it started while the sun was still up, it didn't feel too metal.
There was a big cavernous room, so you'd need a few thousand people to fill it. I'm not too good a judge of crowds, but I'd guess five hundred to a thousand were there. Not a lot for the biggest metal band in the country, but not bad for a place where every third song you hear as you walk down the street is Lady Gaga. Even the toilets showed you how small the metal scene is here: they were outside and there were no back stage ones, so when I went before things started I was standing between members of the band in full costume.
The crowd was also different to what you might expect. Elsewhere you'd probably find a mostly male crowd in various metal t-shirts. There were a few going for that look, and there was a bit more black than you typically find, but they were in the minority: there were also a lot of couples, and in general it would have been impossible to tell that they were going to the gig if they weren't queued up at the entrance. A more interesting feature was that lots of people brought bags of "ghost money". This comes in big yellow wads which you're meant to burn for your ancestors to use in the afterlife.
No support band, and not even a DJ or playlist while we waited - just a Marilyn Manson album, not even slightly grim and necro. All that aside, the entrance was good and atmospheric: banners hanging behind the stage, mournful erhu intro music, darkened stage, etc. When they came on they had good presence, not arrogant but with a decent amount of movement. Their current costumes a much more subdued than I'd heard, they didn't really have much "Ghost Paint" (like corpse paint but based on the guardians of Daoist hell) and had opted instead for just plain black. There was a bit of darkness around the eyes, some kind of clothe with writing on it completely covering CJ the keyboardist's face and a strange spiky mask on the drummer, but certainly not some horrible attempt to look like Immortal.
So on to the most important part: the music. It was awesome! I hadn't yet had a chance to listen to more than a couple of MP3s once or twice on their website, but I could still distinguish individual songs (unlike some bands whose songs end up blending together and sounding the same live). As a group they were very tight. Dani's drumming was damn good, Jesse played some awesome riffs and the occasional solo, but clearly knew his limits and didn't ruin things by over reaching himself. The keyboards were there, but not dominating, which in most bands that aren't Emperor is how I like them. Doris' bass was good I guess, I'm not that great a judge of bass, but I can't say her vocals were very strong - maybe it was the mix, I don't know. Freddy's vocals had a pretty good range and were convincingly grim but with their own sound. He also played their trademark erhu himself, and played it well (which is harder than it sounds - it takes a lot of training to get it to not sound like fingernails down a blackboard).
Unfortunately my Chinese is not good enough to understand speeches, as a number of times in pauses between songs he would address the crowd. I got the gist that some was about politics, some was about the recent huge typhoon (Morakot) and some was about it being nice to be back somewhere he could understand what people said after an Australian tour. It didn't seem too preachy though, having a bit of back and forth with the crowd, some jokes and laughter, it was a pretty cool atmosphere really.
The crowd was interesting to watch too - it seemed despite their unmetal attire (as mine is) they weren't there for the novelty, but genuinely liked the music. The sung along (Taiwan is a karaoke country after all), nodded along a bit, but mostly seemed fairly static in their enjoyment, apart from the enthusiastic throwing of ghost money in the air. Metal is metal though, so for a few songs at least some were unable to resist the urge to mosh, and after politely asking non-moshers to step back we had a frantic time smashing against each other on the carpet of yellow paper. I should have worn shoes though - it's hard and painful to mosh properly in sandals!
They didn't do an encore, but they did have an intermission in the middle and must have played for about two hours. I certainly wasn't disappointed, and recommend anyone to go and see them - just bring your bundles of ghost money.
Thursday 4 March 2010
Chthonic
You're in Taiwan, browsing through CDs to kill time, when you come across one that can only be metal - blood red characters, a logo that looks even more indecipherable than normal Chinese, a dark, brooding colour scheme, and violent graphics. You buy it, take it home, put it on, and suddenly your being assaulted by blast beats, tremolo guitar riffs, unmistakably black metal screams, all blended with traditional Taiwanese music through the plaintive tone of the erhu. Well done, you've just bought an album by the biggest Taiwanese metal band Chthonic.
In Taiwan, many people have a "Chinese name" written in Chinese characters, and an "English name" which is supposedly easier for non-Chinese speakers to pronounce. Taiwan's most famous metal band have taken a different approach though. Their Chinese name is 閃靈 , pronounced "shan ling" - fairly easy for most people to pronounce I think - but not so their English name, which is hard to say without showering your listener with saliva: Chthonic. Apparently this is an actual word, coming from Greek and is some kind of adjective to do with dieties, so it might appropriate.
Despite their name and the tiny size of the scene they spring from, Chthonic are a damn good black metal band. I've read a quite few reviews that compare them to Cradle of Filth, but this seems unfair. As far as I can tell, these comparisons seem to be based on them a) being a metal band and b) using keyboards. I actually quite like Cradle of Filth, but even they don't define themselves as black metal, and Chthonic to me at least fall very firmly at the black end of the metal spectrum. There is no gothic feel to the music, or vampire erotica in the artwork, image or lyrics, all of which are more serious (without disappearing up their own arses). In fact, there is one well known BM band that uses keyboards whose influence I can hear - Emperor.
In interviews it's become clear that their main metal influences are indeed in Scandinavia rather than Birmingham, but unlike many bands around the world they've looked deeper into the general feel, lyrics and philosophy of the original BM circle. Despite an alarming number of missionaries here, Taiwan's culture has not been oppressed or even just apparently oppressed by Christianity, so Chthonic have realised that singing about Satan or Norse gods would be completely irrelevant here. Taiwanese aboriginal culture has to an extent been repressed, but it has also been absorbed into the Confucian-Taoist-Buddhist combination that is the religion of most people both in mainland China and Taiwan.
So Chthonic draw from their native religion, writing songs about the gods, hells, demons and legends of Taiwan. I'm not sure how good the original lyrics sound in Chinese when not being screamed, but translated they read no more ridiculous than other black metal, much less ridiculous than most, and actually keep to a theme quite well.
Their image has also been influenced this way. They don't just wear the old corpse paint, but "ghostpaint" originally based their look on various demons of the 8 generals of Taoist hell, though they seem to have morphed away from this to include a guy with no face and a goth girl Doris the bassist who has been rather popular at photo shoots on their recent world tour. At gigs, you bring "ghost money" (paper money normally burnt to honour ancestors) and through it on stage or up in the air at key moments in the songs.
And then there is the music itself, which as well as great heavy riffs, also has traditional instruments and music layered over the top or in fills between tracks, most prominently the erhu, a two stringed instrument played with a bow. I've heard some reviews of early albums I have yet to hear that questioned how well this was done, but to my ears on the latest, "Mirror of Retribution", it works very well, though it would be good to hear even more, and instruments other than the erhu. I'd particularly like to hear the crazy cacophany of drums and symbols that accompany many celebrations here, from festivals to funerals, somehow used in metal, as I think it could sound awesome.
In looking from something kind of oppression to rebel against, Chthonic have also, like some European BM bands, found a political cause, although thankful not quite as moronic, obnoxious, vile and reactionary as the white supremacists in some of my favourite bands. The lead singer Freddy in particular has been very outspoken in favour of Taiwanese independence from mainland China at gigs, in interviews, in press releases, and even lecture tours.
If you don't know about the China/Taiwan issue, this may be a little hard to understand, but here's a brief summary of the history: mainland China was declared a republic in 1911,and then decended into civil war which continued into and beyond the Second World War. Taiwan meanwhile was under (comparatively benign) Japanese occupation from 1897 until the end of the Second World War when it was handed over to China. On the mainland, the civil war was now between the Communists and the Nationalists of the KMT, but the latter were losing badly and had to retreat to Taiwan, clashing with those who already lived there.
Now, the mainland still claims Taiwan as a rebelious part of the People's Republic of China, while Taiwan is officially the free are of the Republic of China, but there is a growing tendency calling for it to declare its independence. If it ever does, China will probably invade, and despite not recognising the ROC, the US is bound to defend it. So that's what it's all about. Personally I don't agree with either side, but it is nice to have a black metal band that isn't just going "oh satan" or "kill the Jews".
Politics aside, maybe due to the tiny size of the metal scene here even with growing international success they do seem approachable and not arrogant towards their fans. Their website is nicely laid out, frequently updated and features a biography, a shop, some wallpapers, tour details and links, but unfortunately no lyrics, so if like me you have Taiwanese releases but don't speak Chinese you have to look elsewhere for translations. They also have a Facebook page as is the fashion now, though it is pretty handy for gig updates etc. Finally, their Encyclopaedia Metallum entry is pretty good, and has their cool old, more necro logo, rather than the new legible one.
Saturday 6 February 2010
Introducing Taiwan
In case you didn't know, Taiwan is a small island in the South China Sea. Officially it is the Republic of China, not a separate country despite having a separate government from the mainland, but if you want to know more about the history and politics I suggest going to Wikipedia. Culturally it is Chinese with influences from the Aboriginal inhabitants, Japan and the West. It's a subtropical island, with living standards fairly comparable to the West - more relaxed and cheaper than say Japan, but not as poor as other South East Asian countries. If you want to visit it, I have another blog here.
Muscially, Taiwan is dominated by sugary Sinopop. If that's your thing, then you'll love it here, but otherwise even decent local indie can be hard to come by. So naturally, the metal scene here is tiny compared to what it is in other countries with a similar population such as Australia.
Still, there is one, but as I live in Tainan, down south, when most things that do happen, happen in the north (Taipei and Taichung) means my knowledge is rather limited. But here's a brief summary anyway. As in many countries, there are plenty of death metal acts and a handful of grindcore, thrash and hard rock. But best of all as far as I'm concerned is that, whilst the winter winds that blow down over mainland China from Siberia can be quite biting, as a subtropical island Taiwan is nothing like Norway, but the single biggest metal band in Taiwan is Chthonic - a black metal band.
In Taipei, there seem to be alot of gigs at a place called the WALL, with other smaller ones happening at Underworld. For records, there are a few online shops such as Rock Empire (in Chinese, but has some English in the menus etc. - Google Translate is your friend) - also a good source of info on tours etc.. And for information and forums, the place to go is Taipei Metal.
Finally, if you want to kill some time with a weird, black metal themed flash site, go here.
Muscially, Taiwan is dominated by sugary Sinopop. If that's your thing, then you'll love it here, but otherwise even decent local indie can be hard to come by. So naturally, the metal scene here is tiny compared to what it is in other countries with a similar population such as Australia.
Still, there is one, but as I live in Tainan, down south, when most things that do happen, happen in the north (Taipei and Taichung) means my knowledge is rather limited. But here's a brief summary anyway. As in many countries, there are plenty of death metal acts and a handful of grindcore, thrash and hard rock. But best of all as far as I'm concerned is that, whilst the winter winds that blow down over mainland China from Siberia can be quite biting, as a subtropical island Taiwan is nothing like Norway, but the single biggest metal band in Taiwan is Chthonic - a black metal band.
In Taipei, there seem to be alot of gigs at a place called the WALL, with other smaller ones happening at Underworld. For records, there are a few online shops such as Rock Empire (in Chinese, but has some English in the menus etc. - Google Translate is your friend) - also a good source of info on tours etc.. And for information and forums, the place to go is Taipei Metal.
Finally, if you want to kill some time with a weird, black metal themed flash site, go here.
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