孤雁 / Gu Yan

While there is absolutely no way anyone can rate China as one of the more consistent countries in terms of producing high-quality black metal (or any sort of metal, for that matter), they are without a doubt an interesting and often overlooked source of musical curiosities worth investigating, and with enough digging eventually you do strike gold. Such is the case with Zuriaake's second album, Gu Yan.

This really comes as a shock after the band's decent, but mostly uninteresting debut a few years ago, which saw the band playing pretty stock Drudkh-ish stuff that was a little light on good riffs and melodies and had few memorable songs. Well, a whopping eight years later, this mysterious trio has not only refined and improved their musicianship and recording capabilities, they've also seemingly totally rebuilt their sound from the ground up, reforging themselves into an impressive outfit that should not be listened to only because they're sort of an exotic curiosity but rather because they've spent these long years apparently becoming masters of their craft.

The new Zuriaake sound is something like a mixture of three styles. One third of this mix is perhaps an unintentional similarity to the sorely missed Sad Legend from nearby Korea, who similarly utilized downtempo passages driven by mournfully melodic chords and knife-in-the-guts vocals to great effect. Somewhat along these same lines, I hear the more downtrodden bits of métal noir Québécois (the style, not the album) such as Gris, Sombres Forêts and that Miserere Luminis collaboration album those two bands did together. Again, similar emoting in the vocals, but also playful drum and bass patterns that get the rhythm section really involved in the music, brooding piano and some similarities in guitar chords and textures. The final element in this hotpot (yeah, I went there, and I'm only slightly ashamed) is Moonsorrow. In fact, there are entire passages of this album that remind me a whole lot of the darker mid-to-late period Moonsorrow material. Long, winding, deliberate buildups, monumental releases of tension sometimes accompanied by soulful clean vocals, brilliant incorporation of folk elements both into the compositions and instrumentation - this album hits all of those notes with a beautiful efficacy.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the big departure from all of those bands is how unabashedly Chinese this album sounds. While it's very easy to think of black metal in terms of the colder regions of central and northern Europe, and understand how easily those things could be translated to a place like Quebec for example, I've found that basically anywhere you've got forests, mountains and a rich folk tradition, you're basically in prime black metal country. The introduction of the Chinese-ness of this album is somewhat gradual; there are hints of it in the instrumental introduction and in some of the melodic choices in the two following tracks which had previously appeared on the prior EP, but they come into full force when the traditional instrumentation is used in the 20-minute monster track "Sleepwalking (Moon Palace / Sacred Walk / A Fond Dream)" which sits right in the middle of this album. While it can be easy to be pulled into certain kinds of gimmicks that are so common in folk-oriented black metal, on Gu Yan these traditional instruments not only do not feel at all like a gimmick, they feel like an absolutely necessary and integral part of the music. At one point there's a high feminine voice singing something that sounds like it's from a classic Chinese opera, doubled with the same melody played by a tremolo guitar before the vocals back out and the rasped main vocals return for a climax before the track melts into an atmospheric passage that's pounding drums, majestic keys and Imperial Court melodies building slowly back up throughout the song's center with the gradual reintroduction of metal instrumentation.

Strong as those folk elements are (my god, "Nostalgia" with its stringed instruments and wailing flute is so perfect), they still wouldn't count for all that much if the metal bits weren't also great but thankfully they are. The guitars are restrained, ringing and pretty when they need to be, or in turns savage and menacing when the music calls for it. The rhythm section is ace as well, with really fluid, richly melodic bass lines working off of a passionate, fiery drum performance, both of which maintain the rhythmic base while also adding power, dynamics and extra layers of that folky goodness when the songs demand it. The level of care put into every single aspect of this album reminds me a lot of the huge amount of work put into that second, recent Macabre Omen album and makes me wonder if these guys similarly spent the last better part of a decade honing this material until it was just so.

Those with an interest in Chinese black metal should probably take notice as this is probably the single best album I've heard from China, but even in an attempt to leave the fetishizing of the exotic aside for a moment it would be utterly foolish not to listen to Gu Yan if sprawling, atmospheric, epic folk-tinged black metal suits your fancy.