It’s not every day that we get a metal band from Taiwan for review. Laang (a Chinese word, meaning “cold” in English) have made it unto our review list via their Austrian label Talheim Records, and I volunteered to review their new long player Riluo (“sunset”) out of pure curiosity. Such curiosity had yielded some nice surprises in the past, broadened horizons and done away with some prejudices. Would this prove to be similarly rewarding? Read on to find out.
Straight from the beginning I was confronted with things entirely unexpected resulting in a conundrum of sorts. The band’s founding and central member, as I have learned from the PR blurb and the Metal Archives, is one Haitao Yang who allegedly was shot in the head during a car-jacking gone wrong. The resulting near-death experience, followed by a difficult and painful recovery process, left him suffering from PTSD. Laang with its harsh output was created as a way of coping with the trauma, which is why the band’s music, thematically and conceptually, mainly explores death and a possible beyond.
The conundrum: Was this story to be taken for fact or with a pinch of salt? I didn’t know. If the latter, this would not be the first incident of this kind, but certainly not something I would welcome or approve of as a way of selling music. Because who wants to be lied to? If the former, meaning if the story was true, me questioning it would mean doubting a victim’s experience of trauma. Which would also be awful. The nitpicker that I am, I checked if Taiwan allows private gun possession (it does not), and if the country has a high crime rate (It doesn’t. On the contrary, in fact). Such an incident would be highly unusual in the band’s country of origin. Maybe it happened somewhere else? Wherever the truth lies, one thing is clear either way: The band’s music is built on difficult grounds.
The band logo, for one, is an elaborate, clever construction. A perfect combination of the band name in Mandarin Chinese and its equivalent in the Latin script, the image similarly resembles both black metal band logos and traditional Chinese architecture – quite a feat of design.
And the music? We’re getting there. Riluo is the band’s third long player, they released their first in 2018 and apparently to some success, having their music featured in movies and video games. Since these one-man beginnings, the band has grown and encompasses at least two members now. Haitao Yang is responsible for programming, vocals and guitar, while Willy “Krieg” Tai plays bass. Zak King is listed as session drummer for Riluo.
The album’s eight tracks ruminate on death, the beyond, the feeling of bleeding out and recovery from the brink – says the PR blurb, and we will just have to believe it, because we don’t speak Mandarin Chinese. All of the long player’s soundscapes rely heavily on programming, so much even, that a comparison to chip tune projects like Master Boot Record could be made – the difference being that Master Boot Record plainly states that everything is programmed. The artificially-produced orchestras and melodies are the foundation onto which the band’s songs are built; guitar, bass, drumming and vocals are added on top of that. Most of the time, the songs have a forceful character, albeit generic sounding. Here and there the tracks are interlaced with dreamy, melancholic bits.
Apart from the programming, Haitao Yang’s harsh vocal performance is the compositional element that sticks out the most, in fact, it dominates every track. With black metal, this is usually not the case. And this is just one if the reasons why I wouldn’t classify this as black metal. The vocals, prominent as they are in the sound mixture, have little variation which means that after a while you get desensitised to their harshness. Only towards the album’s end an audible change takes places, albeit a programmed one. On track number seven, Juren, the vocals have been multiplied into a choir, and to great effect – the singing here sounds like it was performed by a horde of the undead. The closing track Riluo turns up the theatrics even more. Sentiments run high here, perhaps too high, with the inclusion of angelic-sounding female backing vocals. I’ve heard such vocals many times too often in combination with harsh music in order to be touched by them even in the slightest. Their inclusion here, one could say, adds an element of cliché.
So, there you have it. Riluo by Taiwanese two-piece Laang proved not really what I expected. I have a problem with large swaths of programmed music, because I think it’s just one step away from AI generated concepts, albums and lyrics. I also don’t like things being called what they are not. Post black would be the more correct label here – if that. Black metal this certainly is not. Altogether, for me, the album has somewhat of a constructed, artificial character. Did AI play a role in making it? It might have. How to deal with this in the future? I have no bloody clue.
(6/10 Slavica)
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