Artist: Chthonic
Title: “A Decade On The Throne” (DVD/CD)
Label: Deathlight Records
Release Date: 6/26/2007
Genre: Melodic Black Metal
Rating: 4/5

Chthonic is a Taiwanese Melodic Black Metal band that blends the elements of the more traditional Symphonic Black Metal into that of Taiwanese music and comes up with a very interesting and intriguing listen for the discerning music fan. Formed in 1995 the band is fueled by their ancient history and heritage along with its mythology and from this they aim is to bring their nations often tragic past to the minds of the people in the modern world of today. The DVD entitled “A Decade On The Throne” is an incredible live concert from the band as they deliver an absolutely pummeling set of tunes for a capacity crowd in Huashan Culture Park in Taipei, Taiwan. Filmed last year (2006), the band uses their cultures musical themes and ideas to great success and it is quite impressive to see how instruments like the Er-hu (a traditional Oriental violin) work within this context. As far as trying to figure out how the level of drama in their music plays out, just envision a little bit of what Dimmu Borgir has been doing on their last few albums but with a distinctive Oriental twist to it. The band also sings in their native tongue so unless you understand Black Metal growls in Chinese you will need to find some English translations to find out what they are singing about. Given a lot of this is based on cultural mythology and history is it surely bound to make for interesting reading. A band like this would most certainly cause quite a stir in a country like their own and according to research they have been banned in certain parts of China based on their own political stand and views. Lead singer Freddy Lim is quite active in the political aspect of his country and stands firm on issues like Taiwanese independence and negationism (which is also referred to as Historical revisionism).
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