梦回唐朝

Tang Dynasty are often cited as one of the first Chinese metal bands that ever existed and they are even less respected than many of their exotic brothers in arms like Aria or Loudness. When I first stumbled over the band and discovered that the band had produced many truly well done video clips for several songs on this album, that the lyrics are very poetic and well written as far as I can judge it with my minor Mandarin skills and that the sound of this record is nearly as good as of any other classic Western heavy metal record from the eighties, I never thought that this was the debut record of a band as they already sound very professional.

The opening track, probably their most famous song to date and only track that got some minor airplay outside of Asia is already an absolute killer. Each time I start the record, I'm not even able to get to the second song because I push the repeat bottom at least twice after the amazing opener. The song starts with a mystic and epic intro that creates many images in your mind and makes you think about Chinese culture, history and nature. "A Dream Return To Tang Dynasty" is indeed already accomplished after a few minutes. When the might drums get in and create a hell load of tension you can't wait for the song to kick off after the majestic introduction. When the track finally starts, it's even better than what you might have expected. The melodies are catchy, the vocals very emotional and somewhat high pitched and operatic but always diversified and never annoying. The chorus is unforgettable and you simply have to sing along to it which mind sound and look very ridiculous in my case. The Chinese vocals fit surprisingly well to the classic heavy metal guitar solos that could directly come off an Iron Maiden record. The atmospheric bridge leads to heavy riffs filled with emotions and come back to the excellent chorus that lead to an energizing fade-out. Yes, energizing fade-outs exist to my big surprise and even though I usually don't like this technique, it sounds very well on this song.

What can you do as a band when you pull off an album with a one hundred percent killer track like this? You can't top this kind of heavy metal song and the band did the right thing. After so much energy, they put a very calm, inspiring and truly meditative song on the second position with great acoustic folk passages. You really feel "The Sun" rising while you listen to this track. The calm and hypnotizing vocals, the great tribal drums and the mysterious back vocals and acoustic guitars lead to one of the best choruses on the whole record. It has a great folk feeling and is truly addictive and touching. Once again you sing along to one of the band's masterpieces. This track is nearly as perfect as the opener.

To keep it short, these two songs are extremely close to perfection and remain my favourite tracks on this excellent debut record. The other songs are all very good but not as essential. There is not a single stinker on the whole record that varies between classic heavy metal, calm hard rock and diverse folk elements. Great guitar solos, very charismatic vocals and poetic lyrics dominate all songs on this release. Just to give you an idea, the track "Choice" even has a very dominating bass guitar and reminds me of glam rock bands such as the legendary T.Rex in the chorus or the music of Cat Stevens in the laid back passages. This means that the band has a high degree of influences and is truly open-minded. At the time of the release, classic heavy metal bands didn't release heavy metal albums of this high quality anymore and the Chinese keep the flame of that genre alive and add their very own touch to it on this album.

Even the Chinese version of the "Internationale" is truly epic and fits to the rest of the record. While the other tracks praise the Chinese culture and history, this album closer was omitted from the original release for political reasons and it's though somewhat sad that this great album has this song as a bonus song now because art and politics should be separated. In many Chinese albums, books and movies, there is though quite often some kind of political propaganda which seems annoying to a person like me that is not very patriotic. In fact, the socialist revolution has nothing to do with the fascinating and long era of the Tang Dynasty and I think one should not have included this closing track on the recent reissues of the album.

Any fan of melodic and epic heavy metal and hard rock music with some folk elements and an exotic touch should definitely try to purchase this record and spread the word about it. This band is definitely in my all time favourite bands of the classic heavy metal genres and one of the greatest things I discovered in music this year. I never thought that there were so many amazing Chinese metal bands out there but the discovery of groups like Tang Dynasty, Screaming Savior (who did a quite good symphonic black metal cover of this record's opener that you should definitely check out), The Last Successor, Fu Xi, Magic World Fantasy and many more proved me wrong and I start to dig deeper and deeper into this emerging and fascinating metal scene. Thanks to globalisation I discover more and more outstanding music from these countries that were still rather isolated from an artistic, cultural and also political point of view not even three decades ago. I hope you also take a chance and ride on these wings of tomorrow to open up your mind for this kind of music from a very charming country that offers much to discover.

Ah, Tang Dynasty. The wine, the music, the poetry, the non-stop parties, the cosmopolitan culture, the full-figured women, the Silk Road, the inventions, the land reforms, the civil service… oh wait, we were talking about the band? Ah, no matter – their debut album starts off with a paean to China’s mediaeval Golden Age in similarly glowing terms. It seems no matter where one turns in metal, the impetus is always to cast glances backward to a distant and meaningful past – musically as well as lyrically, given how influenced traditional, progressive, symphonic and power metal are by classical musical progressions.

Along with Israel’s Orphaned Land and England’s Skyclad, Tang Dynasty was at the forefront of folk metal, experimenting with blends of heavy metal and the traditional musical styles of their region, so they deserve a level of respect for being, with this album, the founding fathers of both Chinese metal and Oriental metal. In their case, however, traditional Chinese musical forms almost demanded a laconic pacing, which made progressive metal in the style of Queensrÿche the logical place to start when attempting to complement the traditional percussion and styling, along with Ding Wu’s Beijing Opera-style lyrics on the title track, 《梦回唐朝》 (‘A Dream Return to Tang Dynasty’), on 《月梦》 (‘Moondream’) and on 《太阳》 (‘The Sun’). Tang Dynasty is not – I repeat, NOT – music you want to listen to if you’re looking for something easy to headbang to; though they have a couple of tracks which come damn close, like 《世纪末之梦》 (‘Dream of Doomsday’) with powerful, traditional bass riffs at the front end making it sound like a lighter incarnation of Accept (though the progressive elements, fear not, do creep in). For the most part, though, it makes excellent background listening music.

These guys put forward a much more consistent level of quality than the present-day torchbearers of oriental metal, Last Successor, but the downside is that the album tends to get old after awhile – that is, until the closing track, 《国际歌》 (‘L’Internationale’), which I’ll get to in a minute. Tracks like 《天堂》 (‘Paradise’), 《飞翔鸟》(‘Soaring Bird’) and 《太阳》 (‘The Sun’) are quite listenable, but they are much closer to progressive rock, psychedelic rock or soft rock than anything else; aside from the fact that they are using distorted guitars and bass and a progressive song structure, there’s really nothing to indicate that this music is ‘metal’ in any way.

Oddly enough, the laid-back, almost psychedelic pacing and the layering, particularly the prominence given to the drums on 《月梦》 (‘Moondream’) and 《传说》 (‘Legend’), call to mind really early heavy metal / hard rock acts like Budgie and Deep Purple, though they show a level of restraint which seems to have come hard to the English proto-metal bands. Ding Wu’s vocals are an acquired taste – he has to throw his voice into falsetto range for a lot of the Beijing Opera-style wails scattered throughout the album, but he employs them to great effect. It’s something I appreciate a lot more than Last Successor’s rather bland, poppy ‘clean’ vocals. The mixing is incredibly well-done considering that this is, after all, a progressive metal band. Production isn’t as great as I’d like, but it’s clear enough to do the job.

Also, red metalheads – forget Eshelon and put down your Kreator albums for a little bit. If you want to listen to some proficient, rousing red metal in a traditional style, see if you can find a copy of this album which has Tang Dynasty’s heavy metal rendition of 《国际歌》 (‘L’Internationale’), that great anthem of the downtrodden everywhere, on it. The instrumentation is suitably heavy with the ever-redoubtable drums of Zhao Nian and bass work of Zhang Ju (may he rest in peace) doing most of the lifting, though it does plod (though what can you expect of a march?). Ding Wu sings the first couple of verses, but he soon passes the baton to a Chinese chorus which sounds like it came out of a 1950’s CPC propaganda film. My only real problem with this song is that it’s slow, and sounds like it was made specifically for belting out in a cheap Beijing karaoke bar. Otherwise – dude, a proletarian revolution without metal is a proletarian revolution not worth having.

Final verdict? Props to these guys for being the founding fathers of heavy metal in China, and this album is certainly a classic and a keeper for aficionados of oriental metal. It’s also very good music, if something of an easy listen. But for the most part they occupy the same no-man’s-land as Deep Purple and Rush; there is enough metal on this album to justify its place on the Archives, but for the most part it’s rock to varying levels of hardness.

17 / 20