We all know Japan has more metalheads than you can shake a wizard’s staff at but I’m going to make an effort to get inside the scenes of other East Asian and Southeast Asian countries. For my first trick, I will focus on an enclave of the metal empire that doesn’t get nearly enough rep, the PRC. These are just a few of the bands I’ve run across while scratching the surface of Chinese metal. Bands like Shangren have been getting some love around the English-speaking blogosphere but other exposure has been few and far between. A friend of mine was nice enough to donate some stunning pictures from his many trips to Beijing, Hong Kong and elsewhere so I look forward to sharing a few of the sights along the way.
The first video comes from Yaksa (otherwise known as Ya Cha) are nowhere to be found on Metal-Archives which may be because I don’t know how to read or write Mandarin (thanks a lot, work ethic). This isn’t usually my cup of tea but the song sometimes reminds me of later Sepultura and the singer’s harsh bridge sounds like Tom Angelripper a la “Tombstone”. Pretty kickass.
The second to us courtesy of band called Dark Cosmos. I’ve gotta say a decent song with some very pretty gnar gnar riffing. Also, the video has a topical treatment I can really relate to: getting super drunk and running. Sometimes you have like six Manhattans and you gotta just get away. These guys play commercial metalcore better than America’s most commercial metalcore acts. Goddamn it, Hannity is right. The Chinese are even beating us at stuff we intentionally invented to be shitty. Oh and boy does the end of the vid throw you for a curve. When that hood comes off, watch out. Deep!
Ego Fall plays some hybrid of industrial metal and metalcore with Chinese folk, and sounds pretty fucking badass, like Rammstein jamming with Shangren or a Chinese Finntroll. The band seems to have started as a pretty straightforward mix of metalcore and folk elements, thematically dealing with Mongolian traditions. However, on their latest effort Inner M, there are some strong electronic and industrial tinges which make for a pretty unpredictable listen. I’m gonna get a hold of copy even if I have to go to Hu Jintao himself and do a more in-depth write-up for this band theys rawks.
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