Artist: Chthonic
Label: SPV Records
Released: 2002
(re-release for the European market – June, 2007)
Taiwan! A bloody history of the fight for independence, which has really been a loyal companion of every global civilization on our planet since time immemorial. Suppressed, oppressed fury comes bursting out and Chthonic are born! The earthly ones! The forces of the underworld awaken, evil spirits, good and wicked gods, and all the other creatures needed for the proper functioning of a fantasy world, which for our brave ancestors was a way of life.
After the band’s latest studio album “Seediq Bale” (2006) got a great critical reception in the US and in Europe alike, earned them a heap of glowing reviews and put them a lot more firmly on the musical map of our planet, it sparked enough interest at the German label SPV to re-release the band’s third studio album, “Relentless Recurrence”. For the Western European market. The album first came out originally in 2002. It was recorded in two original versions: one where Freddy Lin screeches in Mandarin, and the other one, in English of course. The re-release comes wrapped in a kitschy, eye-catching cardboard box that’s hard to resist.
On to the music. “Relentless Recurrence” is an interesting oddball of an album, if only because it comes from Asia! It manages to fuse the roots of Oriental folk tradition (gongs, background vocal harmonies and especially the two-stringed fiddle called the Er-hu) with the trappings of the well-known Scandinavian morbidity, in a mix that grabs enough attention that you simply can’t ignore it if you happen to come face to face with its sounds. That’s the key to Chthonic’s recognizability, even though in their riff-writing, melody-hunting and atmosphere they lean on Cradle Of Filth and Dimmu Borgir, even if their black metal “reality” on this record is projected light years away from the best days of both of those bands. Big melodies are the foundation Chthonic build on. The classic metal riffs, in their search for black metal likeness, most resemble early Cradle Of Filth. Combined with the drifting synthesizers, which for most of the record imitate a string section and so create a bold production curtain throughout the album, one that holds the riffs together and brings in an element of drama, pain, suffering and boundless sorrow, they come close to Dimmu Borgir waking up on the worst day of their own musical career. In terms of fury, epic bombast, captured triumph and of course the creation of tragedy, the album is a helpless little chick when you try to put it next to the best work of Dimmu Borgir. Still, Chthonic show great compositional and breakthrough potential, especially thanks to that leaning on the elemental heritage of indigenous music, which brings them recognizability under the free sun in the shared musical denominator, even though the band at times doesn’t hide a certain naivety and recklessness in its approach.
The vocals are pitched high and screechy, with a fleeting resemblance to the shrieking of someone like Bal-Sagoth, but only fleeting. Throughout the album, as a counterweight to the extreme singing, there are woven-in “back” vocal lines from bassist Doris, which carry a convincing, icy-cold gothic breath and follow a deliberate dissonance (often in the form of desperate narratives of mourning), which further widens the colorful palette of Chthonic’s sound, while “growls” join the general extreme screaming in pinches as a seasoning. Interestingly, the guitar, which does signal the great skill it possesses with some hellish picking over the basic riffs, mostly avoids soloing, since Chthonic give priority to building the bombast of the black metal atmosphere. Above all, though, the drums are a big untapped resource. The drumming lacks the required malice (standard blast beats are found only in “traces” on the record). So, interestingly, the metal riffs together with the rhythmic base take the record at moments toward classic heavy metal to power metal standards.
“Relentless Recurrence” is based on a concept of war between Chinese and Taiwanese gods. For this album Chthonic used a famous story that every child in Taiwan gets to know (practically in the cradle). It tells of the arrogance and corruption of the Han, who were forbidden from entering the island of Taiwan, since they were known for their cheating, swindling and other dirty business, and above all they went after the gentler sex, as these degenerates resorted to violence in the form of rape. That also happened in the concept story to the heroine Natao-Ji, who, defiled, takes her own life in order to be reincarnated as a deity, return to Earth and take revenge. Of course, on the record we find ourselves in an instant in a pool of spilled blood, enough to account for an entire global flood. The girl’s revenge is of course successful. The traditional Taiwanese tale stops there, but the album’s concept doesn’t, since the tenth track (also the closing one), which is “hidden” inside the ninth, condemns Natao-Ji to eternal suffering, as she has to live through the whole personal catastrophe over and over again. Black metallers just love tragedy wrapped in hopeless blackness, the creatures of judgment hour on humanity’s darkest day!
With “Relentless Recurrence” Chthonic once again confirmed the great potential carried by their musical understanding. The band knows how to put their compositions together in a remarkably fluid way, and on the technical side (despite the untapped drums) the album has a satisfying level of dynamics, as “Relentless Recurrence” is hugely varied in its motifs, always stirring things up and never boring. Sure, on the atmospheric side there are still big holes in the band’s sound, but the band can mature its way out of them and lift things to a higher level as early as the next album. In November 2006 Chthonic released a new album, “Seediq Bal”, for the North American and European market, but that’s another story.
Lineup
Freddy – vocals, Er-hu
Jesse – guitar
Doris – bass guitar, backing vocals
Vivien – synthesizer, piano
A-Jay – drums
Production
Chthonic
Tracklist
1. Nemesis
2. Onset Of Tragedy
3. Obituary Tuning
4. Grievance Acheron Poem
5. Revert To Mortal Territory
6. Funest Demon Born
7. Vengeance Arise
8. Slaughter In Tri-Territory
9. Grab the Soul To Hell
10. Relentless Recurrence (hidden track)
Running time: 56.52
