末裔 (The Last Successor)

The Chinese metal band The Last Successor delivers great epic progressive metal with power and folk influences. I found their debut record by pure coincidence and consider myself as a fan right now. This band surely merits a larger focus and not only because they are exotic. Their music is really professional and elaborated. The music is diversified but still filled with straight riffs and catchy piano melodies. The vocals are exotic but never oout of place and powerful. The production is quite good and the box set of this record is very beautiful, too. This is a beautiful gem I would like to purchase if I have the occasion to do so.

From the amazing introduction called "Roots" on that mixes floating Tangerine Dream vibes with traditional Chinese folk sounds and score orchestrations worthy of an epic movie, the album drowns us into a very profound atmosphere.

The band delivers a perfect cinema for your mind and your ears from then on. "Way Back" starts with sounds of rifles and machine guns reminding me of Savatage's "Of Rage And War" or even Godsmack's "Straight Out Of Line". The track quickly becomes a very epic gothic track with growls, sharp riffs and also very melodic clean vocals that are surprisingly solid. Even though the song has some power metal elements, it always sounds dark and the vocals are not high pitched at all. The Chinese lyrics fit surprisingly well and don't sound out of place at all. The track has small progressive breaks that keep the tension and attention of the listener on a high level. In comparison to other bands with progressive elements, this band doesn't need endless shred guitar solos to do so but uses inoffensive keyboard sounds that create a bombastic atmosphere.

The great thing is that the band keeps this high level all over the record. "Abyss" has sharp and almost thrash riffs and starts with a pumping bass line. In contrast to this, folk elements can be heard in the beginning and the chorus is very melodic without sounding cheesy and used. The songs manage to be diversified but only in the details as they sound coherent and easy to digest.

From almost commercially orientated half-ballads such as "See Jasmine Again" to heavier tracks with epic passages and vocals somewhere between J-Rock, Gothenburg melodic death metal and Nu Metal as we can hear it in "The World", the band manages to play many different styles in a perfect manner and also has the ability to make the whole thing sound coherent and structured.

The band even gets better and better on this record. Even though there is not a single bad song on the record I must point out "Behind Lies". It's maybe the strongest track on here. It is a very harsh track with some modern elements. Powerful gothic and death growls meet hectic keyboards sounds reminding me of Dream Theater. This song is completely unpredictable with its sound effects, weird heavy riffs and an outstanding guitar solo.

In the end, this is the first Chinese metal band and album I have ever listened to and it really leaves me wanting more. My copy of this record is ordered by now and I can't wait to hold this precious gem in my hands. This is by far the greatest surprise and best album I have listened to in a while. I somewhat hesitated to give this record such a high rating but as it really impressed me and I'm sure it will even grow on me I honestly think I don't exaggerate in here. Be sure to check this out if my review awoke some interest in you as the album can easily be found online.

Where to begin with the debut album of 末裔 [The Last Successor]? For one thing, it’s outrageously difficult to get a hold of outside of China, and even inside China it can be a chore (I ended up going to the huge bookstore in Xidan to get a copy, and it was ridiculously pricey by Chinese standards!). On the music: in a nutshell, it’s the strange but oddly charismatic scion of the oriental / folk metal style of Tang Dynasty (complete with traditional instruments like the 二胡 [two-stringed Chinese fiddle], 琵琶 [pipa], 古筝 [zither] and 笛子 [flute]), mixed with both power-metal guitar work and catchy, groovy driving bass leads (particularly on tracks like 《归途》 [‘Way Back’], 《释放》 [‘Released’] and 《谎言背后》 [‘Lies Behind’]) which actually are more reminiscent of classic hard rock à la Guns N’ Roses than anything else, with some death metal vocals and bass / drums work (as in 《世界》 [‘World’]) thrown in for good measure. And yet, it somehow hasn’t managed to shake the overall stylistic trappings of a contemporary C-pop act, particularly given Song Yang B’s clean vocals. There are a number of elements here which should have raised some warning flags for the die-hard metalhead, or at least gotten him to scratching his head in puzzlement. This is indeed a band which draws upon a number of different influences, but which manages to make them all hang together somehow.

This band’s history and direction reminds me, somewhat surprisingly, of Falconer’s. Like Falconer, the formative, creative core of the band started out playing extreme metal (brutal death metal in the case of 陈尸 [Stale Corpse], rather than Mithotyn’s Viking black) before they broke away in favour of a more melodic style with heavy folk influences. In both cases, the extreme metal influences live on in the music of the new incarnation, though in Falconer’s music they are more deeply submerged than in The Last Successor’s (partly because Stefan Weinerhall strikes me as single-mindedly intent on doing his own thing). But the similarities stop there. After all, not only are the folk influences completely divergent, but so is each band’s take on what melodic metal should sound like.

To give an example; the intro, 《序》 [‘Intro’] begins with a dark, ominous drum beat that yields to a simple, sparse melody on the pipa and zither, which widens into a vast and gorgeous symphonic arrangement that sounds like the opening track on the soundtrack to a Chinese historical epic – and then, once we have been thus lulled into serenity, we’re treated as 《归途》[‘Way Back’] begins to the rattle of modern machine guns and a speedy guitar riff that sounds like the introduction to one of Sabaton’s more awesome numbers; add some martial snare drumming, and once the bass and keyboards join in we’ve already been pumped to the point of massive headbangage. On subsequent tracks (《深渊》 [‘Abyss’], 《释放》 [‘Released’]) they do a far better job of meshing the folk instrumentation within a metal setting.

It is amply demonstrated on this album this band can fucking rock when they feel like it, but one of my complaints about this band’s direction overall is that the keyboard work and the singing in particular sound just a tad too poppy, possibly to make their music more accessible to a Chinese audience attuned to a certain style of male singing / musical progression. I have this complaint with other Chinese bands from time to time, including the Gothenburg metal group 颠覆M [Ego Fall]. This is most evident on the obligatory power-ballad 《又见茉莉花》 [‘Again to See a Jasmine Blossom’], but also creeps in on tracks like 《昨天》 [‘Yesterday’] and 《亿前年之恋》 [‘Love a Hundred Million Years Past’]. Song B, a little bit of dramatic vibrato is fine when you’re doing clean vocals – this is power metal, after all, and if you’re not at least a little theatrical when singing power metal then something is seriously wrong with you – but it isn’t mandatory to sound like Jay fucking Chou here! The keyboard also sometimes sounds better suited to a Jay Chou album, but this is more than made up for on tracks like 《释放》 [‘Released’].

《释放》 [‘Released’] is probably one of the high points of the album; a high-energy cruiser with some very decent keyboard arpeggios and flute work complementing the driving bass line. This is quickly followed up by the equally awesome 《谎言背后》 [‘Lies Behind’], which features the same masterful composition, but also features some Chinglish lyrics which are all the more difficult to take seriously for being delivered in harsh vox. 《世界》 [‘World’] is also a favourite, featuring epic instrumentation delivered alongside some heavy bass work that carries more than a few hints of The Last Successor’s death metal roots.

All in all, The Last Successor is a mixed bag, but that’s by no means a bad thing, and this album is a very strong start for them. But I’d like to see them develop a vocal style that’s more solidly consistent with the instrumentation they’re using.

17 / 20