The extreme metal band Chthonic from Taiwan is a band that has bleeped by several times on my radar in the form of personal recommendations and simply for being a metal outfit from Asia (that always heightens my interest for no good reason), but for some reason I have never taken the time to get to know them.
This year, as they were opening the Rockharz festival’s final day and we thus had nothing better to do except get over a bit of a hang-over, I figured it was as good a time as any to check them out...

The circumstances couldn’t have been better for the band as the heavy rain that had been falling all morning had stopped completely just before the gig, and now a warming sun smiled down upon the weary but metal-hungry line of audience that had gathered in front of the Rock Stage.
The band came on sporting their outré black and gold outfits and ghost-paint (as they refer to call their special style of make-up), and it was especially keyboardist CJ Kao with his beak-like mask and Doris Yeh, this tiny girl with a huge bass (yes, bass, you dirty-minded mongrel!), who caught my eye in the beginning.
Chthonic quickly began pummelling us with the first song, the only song I sadly did not catch the name of, and it quickly became clear that this was a band that was ready to kick ass no matter what time of the day it was! This was of course very welcome as I believe we all needed a little pick-me-up, and this was exactly what the band was providing.
The music was mostly up-tempo modern black metal with a melodic side added with the keyboards and the odd string instrument, erhu, which vocalist Freddy Lim was playing from time to time. The erhu mostly drowned in the mix sadly, and the sound wasn’t the best I’ve ever heard, but it was good enough to get an idea of what the band was about, and also gave me the idea that I would have been far better off if I had checked some of their music out at home before seeing them live. Oh well...

What was more important the technical side of the sound however, was that the band really proved they could perform. They were figuratively killing it up there on the stage!
Not that they were doing something largely uncommon to this style of music, what with the headbanging and a bit of movement, but somehow they had a very tight grip on the audience while doing so, and everything in their performance seemed authentic and engaging.
Lim also spent some time speaking between songs, still using his shrieked vocals as he did so, but I was able to pick up that he was in part making some commercials for the bands one o’clock p.m. signing session which he hoped all of us would be able to attend, something I didn’t this time around as I simply do not have such a strong tie to the band yet.
Chthonic’s set wasn’t overly long, they had half an hour, but it was enough to wake up the early morning tired audience, and even though I was practically new to their music I had a very good time and felt this was a great way to start a day with several more goodies on the horizon.

Setlist (incomplete):

Southern Cross
Forty-Nine Theurgy Chains
Quell The Souls In Sing Ling Temple
Takao