Cover Art: I’ve been following ChthoniC for a few years now since I first discovered them with their Takasago Army album in 2011. The cover art for their albums were generally mediocre and standard looking death metal art pre-Takasago Army, filled with scary and spooky looking scenes/grim reapers etc but since that album they really found their niche and really stepped up their game and creativity. Simply put, I think this cover is amazing and accurately represents how the band sounds and the feel/tone of the entire album as a whole. Plus it’s really cool. We got some asian cyborg girl with a katana and a gun arm! Howbadass is that? Her flowing white hair and dynamic pose further emphasis her sword striking stance and the eerie yet elegant/beautiful composition of the cover itself. Plus she’s naked, that’s always a plus. One of the most memorable and beautiful covers in recent memory. Would have poster on wall.
Album Review: To be honest, I don’t really know why I am reviewing this album, it came out 2, almost 3 years ago at the time of this writing. But even after such a long period of time, I always end up coming back to this album to remind myself of why I love metal; especially after listening to some shit other album or random ghetto tunes. It’s probably one of my favorite metal albums of the last few years and don’t see anything trumping it anytime soon; at least until maybe ChthoniC’s next album. The kind of metal being played here is melodic/symphonic death/black, yea the lines are kind of blurred with this labeling shit but you get the idea. It’s hard to describe the tunes of this album, they are highly dynamic and their tempo ranges greatly with each song but for some reason it works, all epicly amazing and fluent, smooth, and natural with a fierce yet passionate feel. The guitar work, drum work, death growls, instrumentation, composition, riffs and atmosphere of all songs is amazing. There is actually 2 versions of this album, Taiwanese and English. In both versions there are cut-in sound clips in Japanese and occasionally clean classical Chinese opera. Fuck, too legit.
As a Taiwanese band, ChthoniC’s themes and subject matter tend to focus on Taiwan’s history and can be considered very nationalistic and patriotic in that regard; subjects for songs ranging from indigenous Taiwanese resistance to Japanese occupation, battles in WWII/atrocities etc. With that in mind, the songs from beginning to end on this album play like a epic war story with clearly defined section/stories. If this was a movie, I would say the first 2 tracks are the opening scenes where a civilian city is being destroyed by invading forces and people getting massacred while people desperately try to fight back and stay alive/escape, the third track would be the calm before the storm/mourning for the dead and preparations for retaliation against the enemy/training time for the army with anger rising for revenge, the next two tracks, “Rage Of My Sword” and “Between Silence And Death” can be considered setting up an ambush/revenge time full frontal battle and or then fighting to the death with honor, the next two tracks would be retreat from the enemy and defeat in battle but continued perseverance to survive and fight back; the final song, “Defenders Of Bú-tik Palace” would be the climax of the movie where the last remaining survivors of the resistance make their last stand against an overwhelmingly powerful enemy with almost certain defeat but nevertheless holding their heads high and fighting to the death. Shit is just too epic. Amazing.
Score: 10/10