chthonic live

On a cold and blustery night in Nottingham Chthonic Taiwanese Black Metallers finally made it over for a UK tour on the back of their recent masterpiece Mirror of Retribution.

The stage is adorned in paper lanterns which creates a special kind of atmosphere before the show even gets underway. Chthonic take to the stage and from the start, it is obvious that it is going to be a blinding set! Unfortunately, after just a few minutes into the first song the guitar cuts out but Jesse then completes possibly the fastest instrument changeover in music history and hardly even misses a verse!

Clientele wise the gig is on the whole the least ‘Black Metal’ crowd that would be expected at a Black Metal gig but never the less the crowd are soon won over by the sheer mightiness of the performance. Each track is dealt with with clinical precision with a thankfully perfect sound so nothing is lost.

The singer Freddy brings things together between songs, teaching the audience that the band name is pronounced ‘thonic’ and also how to say ‘kill’ in Taiwanese, just in time for a bit of audience participation! One of the highlights of the performance was when he played the Hena for some of the oriental string sections.

Doris Yeh’s accompanying vocals added an ethereal quality to many tracks and were note perfect throughout. It was the perfect mix of brutality and melody which just packed an almighty punch, it just highlighted that this band deserve more recognition as the whole concert was just awe inspiring.

Many songs from the latest album were included in the set list including Blooming Blades and the awesome Forty-Nine Theurgy Chains but there were also some older gems including Grab the Soul to Hell as well as others from their back catalogue, all of which deliver some high quality Black Metal mixed in with the Far Eastern sound which makes them so unique.

The night was rounded off with Quasi Putrefaction and left the whole audience wanting more! A nice touch to the end of the gig was the meet and greet session after the show where the band happily signed and posed for photos with nearly everyone there, in fact the size of the queue of men waiting to meet Doris Yeh was impressive in itself!

by Claudia Glazzard