Taipei Metal

Destruction: Full Speed Thrash

There are not many thrashers left these days that can genuinely say they've been around to see the genre from its inception through to the present day. But Marcel Schirmer, better known to millions of metal heads around the world as Schmier, bassist and vocalist of seminal German thrash act Destruction, has been there from the beginning. Though the years and the miles keep adding up, Schmier has never allowed Destruction to let old age or the wear and tear of the road slow the band down. Quite the contrary, in fact, as the band, which also includes guitarist Mike Sifringer, the only member to stick with Destruction for its entire existence, and new edition Vaaver on the drums, has included some of its most consistently blistering material in its latest album, Day of Reckoning. Schmier points to the addition of Vaaver, a.k.a. Wawrzyniec Dramowicz, a classically trained musician from Poland who has also done time with the Wachau symphonic orchestra, as the reason behind Destruction's resurgence in the speed department.

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Chthonic: The Final Battle at Sing Ling Temple

The ornate and historic Sing Ling Temple, located on a hillside in the scenic mountain town of Puli in Nantou County, Central Taiwan, played host to Taiwan’s top extreme metal band, Chthonic, this past Saturday. The temple is of special historical significance to Taiwan, as it was the site of a battle between Taiwanese troops and KMT soldiers following the 228 incident, in which many thousands of Taiwanese were massacred by the KMT over 40 years ago. Chthonic has since made the temple, along with local folklore and the Taiwanese fight for recognition of their independence, a central focus of their music and lyrics.

Fans began lining up hours in advance of the concert’s 6:30 p.m. start time, climbing the steep hillside steps leading up to the bright orange thatched roofs and delicate masonry of the temple proper to the staging area just behind it. A film crew, documenting the concert for a future DVD release, lugged hundreds of kilograms of gear, including a large swing-arm camera that dipped and dove over the heads of the fans throughout the show, up the stairs in temperatures that reached an unseasonably high 30 degrees plus.

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Review: Assault - The Exceptions of the Rebellions

Did I miss the Scandinavian invasion of Singapore? Is one of the last few city states in the world now known more for its top-three finishes at elite level hockey tournaments and Nordic event dominance at the Olympics than it is for its vaunted multiculturalism and clean streets? If not, how else could you explain a band like Singapore’s Assault pulling off the melodic death metal sound, forged by the likes of Swedish luminaries such as At the Gates, In Flames, and Dark Tranquility so well?

Assault has well and truly arrived with its first EP, The Exceptions of the Rebellions, a four track effort many years in the making. Featuring great production, not just for an indie release, but genuinely clear, powerful production, blackened, clearly enunciated vocals, and Euro inspired riffs and tone, the mini album kicks off with “Subversion.” The track features the patented harmonized guitar attack during the verse, heavily inspired by the many European melodeath acts that have come before. It’s both catchy and dramatic, with soaring hammer on and pull of solos over a straight ahead, driving hard rock/metal beat.

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Bloodred Fullmoon - Winter Solstice

Taipei-based multi-instrumentalist and all around virtuoso Ray Heberer released a five-song EP entitled Winter Solstice through his Bloodred Fullmoon project in late September. This offering is currently available for free download via Ray’s Bandcamp page. Ray, who is all of 16 years old, is one of those rare people, regardless of a age, of such uncommon talent that actually has the unmitigated drive to match. He currently has at least five bands on the go, and he handles the entirety of the writing and arrangements for all of them. If this is where he is at 16, just imagine where he’ll be at 20, 25, 30, if he chooses to continue with his music. And why wouldn’t he?

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Interview: Abhor - On Esoteric Winds

For the past 15 years plus, Italian self-described “Esoteric Horror Black Metal” band Abhor has gone about maniacally splicing the unexplained elements of mankind's wayward path along the astral plane, occultism, witchcraft, and esotericism with an atmospheric, depressive, and darkly beguiling musical formula that drips from the many disparate branches of the black metal family tree. Though various forces have conspired in the past couple of years to keep Abhor off the stage, the band has nevertheless continued to compose, and has just released it's fifth full length album, the thought provoking and intriguing  Ab Luna Lucenti, Ab Noctua Protecti, a record that, while low on technicality, revels in its slow, simple brand of misanthropy and broad, heady exploration through minimalist but recognizable black metal progressions and layered keyboard atmospherics. Band founder, guitarist, and composer Domine Saevum Gravem spoke to Taipei Metal about the band's history, philosophy, and new album.

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Interview: Nocturnal Fear - War Metal

For over a decade, Detroit, Michigan  thrashers Nocturnal Fear have been dropping one bunker busting album of searing warfare-inspired Teutonic terror after another. Heavily inspired by the likes of legendary acts such as Sodom and Kreator, both lyrically and musically, Nocturnal Fear is a band that has known exactly what its message is from day one, and hasn't compromised its sound or values for one note or a single line. With a new album, Excessive Cruelty, the band's fifth full length, just released on Moribund Cult, founding member and guitarist Reverend Slavehunter talked to Taipei Metal about the new record, and Nocturnal Fear's unwavering and incendiary approach to true thrash metal.

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Interview: Amorphis - Lore, Legend, and Death Metal

For most metal fans, Amorphis is a band that needs little introduction. Just over two decades ago the Helsinki, Finland-based group got its start as a straight ahead death metal band before embarking on a more progressive path with its second album, the much lauded Tales from the Thousand Lakes. This was the album that first saw Amorphis incorporate clean vocals along with folk and quasi-psychedelic elements into a concept record focused on the Kalevala, a 19th century work of epic poetry centered on Finnish and Karelian folklore and mythology. Since that release, just over a decade and a half ago, Amorphis has forged its own way in the metal world, further exploring the ever blurring edge between folk and metal music, deftly treading between the two worlds on many an epic offering. Today, the band is touring in support of its tenth studio album, The Beginning of Times, which once again delves into the Kalevala for more musical and lyrical inspiration. The album capped off a busy past couple of years for Amorphis, which saw the band release a CD/DVD retrospective set called Forging the Land of Thousand Lakes in 2010 before hunkering down in the studio for The Beginning of Times sessions. Band founder and guitarist Esa Holopainen spoke to Taipei Metal about his band's new album, which was just released in May in Europe and June in North America, and his experiences in the metal scene over the past two decades plus when Amorphis played in Taipei alongside Children of Bodom in June.

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Interview: Almah - Second Life

Though it could be argued that the best metal bands of today aren't the young guns, but the old schoolers, metal is definitely kinder to the under thirty set than it is to those creeping towards the dark side of the hill. People age, mature, and inevitably wind up with a different set of priorities when they hit their thirties than they had when they were twenty. Such is the natural, and somewhat depressing order of things, for most, anyway. But then there are those musicians who hold onto that youthful vitality with such unshakable tenacity that, even as they see their band mates veering toward the road most traveled, they refuse to be drawn by its near overpowering gravitational pull

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