China. Not the place you immediately think of for heavy metal, let alone Black Metal. Unless of course you have already made the acquaintance of marvelous Chinese Mongolian pagan metal horde Tengger Cavalry. In which case, why not? History and mythology are a hugely rich seam for black metal to grow in and with such a huge diversity of peoples and history, not to mention a musical sensibility that is impossible to overestimate you kind of hope that the transgressive and oppositional stance of metal might nestle in a few souls in China besides Ai Weiwei
This debut album begins in melodic, semi acoustic fashion with flute and gentle guitar on ‘Bleed’ before, on a sixpence, hurtling forward into classic symphonic black metal. It’s nicely and sharply produced and the playing is absolutely faultless; keyboards dancing in and out of the riffs and vocals howling like a storm. You would never guess where this came from and could slip into any European roster with ease. A touch generic but seriously classy. Dark Ring follows and is pretty similar except it trades the semi-acoustic for some heavy metal guitar flourishes and total drum battery. The neo-classical interlude ‘For The Elapsed’ is, really, pure ‘Cruelty And The Beast’ CoF; evocative, rich and atmospheric.
Glory Of The Warrior is the first time even a hint of Oriental melody creeps in, just a pinch in all the heavy and pagan metal guitar work, and there is more than a touch of Chthonic to it (though something tells me neither band might be overly fond of the comparison, sadly). Now just because a band comes from a particular part off the world does not mean that they should always delve into traditional music (if it did England would be knee deep in bell-jangling morris dancer metal and Scotland would be suffocating under clouds of bagpipe riffs) but the total European feel here is remarkable, as is the total class of the music on display. They move through the transitions of symphonic black metal in ‘Malevolent Incubus’ through to the oddly named blackened melodeath of ‘Pardon Crime’ with a truly shocking fluidity. Yes it is all a bit generic in places, but this is their debut and frankly the musical chops on display both in playing and writing push it way above that and mostly win me over. Supremely melodic and symphonic but far from toothless and much more interesting than Dimmu Borgir for me.
Recommencing is a beautiful violin and piano interlude that nicely leads in to the epic Suffering From Disaster. This goes from staccato riffing interlaced with piano, to vicious, teeth baring attacks with excellent vocals and then down into the pseudo classical again. Treble high, throat ruining stuff. Honestly excellent if you don’t mind your black metal keyboards and cello. It seems to have more than a little in common with Japanese visual kei band Moi Dix Mois, too, as far as their approach to mixing the classical with the black metal goes; a thick swirl of strings and virtuoso guitar deftly weaving in and out of each other (though thankfully without Moi Dix Mois’ penchant for j-pop but alas without their spectacular gender bending…!)
Unchain, a pretty heads down symphonic/Cradle rip ‘n’ thrash, brings us to World Of Hatred, the final song and another fairly feral affair (in context, not compared to Bahimiron or someone).
It really isn’t an album that is too long, too slick or too smooth. Despite all the excellent points noted above I do however come back to the notion of identity for some reason. They have obvious influences, yes, but it’s not that Dark Ring sound like a copy of anyone so it’s more that the seams between those influences haven’t fully healed over yet. But that will come and even now if symphonic black metal with heavy metal leads and a nasty bite is your thing you’ll be needing to hear these guys now. I just hope that they get a chance to explore the wider world and truly flower.
(7/10 Gizmo)
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