超载

The album Overload 《超载》 by the eponymous band is a difficult one to review. On the one hand, it’s hard to overstate its importance in the development of China’s rock and metal scene. Overload is often called, and not without justification, China’s first real thrash metal album. On the other hand, it’s such an odd-duck mix of eclectic parts and influences that it often feels like the proverbial kitchen sink.

Eclecticism is almost a hallmark of Chinese metal. That can turn off a number of first-time listeners, but there’s a wealth of fun lying beneath the surface for those who are patient enough to listen for it. In Britain and the US, heavy metal developed out of large industrial and post-industrial towns. There was a distinctive working-class element and aesthetic to the sounds that came out of Birmingham, London and Cardiff—and later, New York and the Bay Area. In China, on the other hand, metal was largely the domain of classically-trained musicians and university students. There was a lot less emphasis on the ‘heavy’ aesthetic in Chinese metal, and a lot more on the intellectual-cultural questions of China’s past (both distant and recent) and current direction. As a result, even from the beginnings of Chinese metal there was this attempt to look out to the rural areas—in particular to the rural west (Shaanxi, Gansu, Inner Mongolia) and the northeast (Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaodong).

Overload is no exception to this. Gao Qi is, unsurprisingly, steeped in this atmosphere of eclecticism. He was one of the first-generation Chinese rock artists, was a classically-trained musician from a long line of musicians in Beijing, and had been the guitarist and the songwriter for the rock band Breath (呼吸). He quit that band and formed Overload when he wanted to go in a heavier, thrash metal direction. Gao Qi’s influences from Metallica are writ plain on this album, as he clearly borrows from both the speedy knife-edge riffs and the cleaner melodic progressions, but he clearly takes hints from bands as diverse as Black Sabbath and Kreator here as well.

The Metallica love is very clear from the opening riff on ‘Cornered in the Moor’. You’ve got that Kirk Hammett-esque churn building up the momentum for a fun high-energy blazer. There are similar Metallica-inspired moments in the heavier passages of ‘Lonesome’. It’s hard not to appreciate the intricacy of the compositions on songs like ‘Distance’, as well, which tend in almost a progressive direction. The guitarwork—both acoustic and plugged-in—on ‘Haunted by Dreams’ is incredibly well-done, even if understated at certain points.

But then there are also the head-scratchers, the bizarre stylistic choices, what I will technically call the ‘artsy-fartsy’ moments. The start-stop rhythms and changing time signatures on ‘Lonesome’ are technically impressive and evocative, but they’re at the service of an emotional roller-coaster ride which is not likely to sink in easily with the listener. The incorporation of discordant female choral sections on the outro section of ‘Poem of Death’, for example, rounds out a track which is otherwise a solid speed-metal shredder. The untitled hidden track is fun, but it has a semi-Latin dance rhythm which seems out of keeping with the character of the rest of the album. ‘Flames of Love’ begins with an unplugged acoustic section which segues roughly into a mid-tempo semi-balladic rock number. And it’s true that the album does have a tendency to settle into just such mid-tempo semi-belladic passages. These passages aren’t, thankfully, badly done (that is to say, they’re placed in well-written songs, and not schmaltzy or cutesy or emotionally-manipulative), but there’s just too many of them: ‘Human Earth’, ‘Haunted by Dreams’, ‘Sensation’, ‘Distance’, ‘Flames of Love’.

Overload is an album which isn’t lacking in enjoyment factors, but it’s definitely a ‘grower’. Because it tries to cover so much musical ground, first listens and first impressions are likely to leave one a bit frustrated. Make no mistake: this is still very much a metal album. But there’s a lot of stone-cold weirdness to sift through, and it can take patience for what Gao Qi is trying to do here to really sink in. In the final analysis, I tend to place it in a class together with Tang Dynasty’s Thorn and Again’s O sole mio.

15 / 20

Welcome to the music of 超载 (who I will refer to as Overload for convenience), proud creators of one of my most confusing expeditions into Chinese metal. I really feel like these Beijingers characterize a type in Chinese music generally, but you’ll have to wait for me to review another album to see exactly what I’m talking about. This debut from 1996 was pretty early for metal in China, so influences can be slightly surprising and dips in quality expected. I feel like comparisons to other bands aren’t that helpful for the slightly eclectic mix of rock and metal subgenres here, although if you’re searching for clues about why they’re on the Archives, you’d do well to consider what made Overkill a metal band at a similar time period, then take out any experiments involving musical styles alien to rock. I’m not terribly hot on this album, but it’s alright.

I’d be surprised if any metalheads failed to notice the copious amount of acoustic guitars and slow, kind of romantic solos smattered across the hour of 超载. Popular music in China still hasn’t finished being sentimental in 2019, which is the main reason I don’t listen to much of it, and Overload were susceptible to that feature in many of these 10 tracks, playing almost balladic styles through the verses of ‘Human Earth’ (‘低下头是人间’) and bridging those with some chugs and reaching vocals. As such, you’ll immediately see my problem with the length of some of these compositions, since doing that slow building style for songs that average 6 minutes gets tiring for a metalhead like me. When the riffs do arrive in the chorus or some heavier parts, they don’t have much definition either, often acting as a prop for the vocals, or – more to the point – setting up a blistering guitar solo, which happens quite often. Apart from the sentimental thing, I’ve never been able to understand why China has such a love for shredding guitar solos, even in regular pop songs. Ah well, I’m not really complaining.

Of course, that means a few songs are essentially just moody rock ballads with slow verses, a few pinches thrown into the riffs, and driving vocals that amp up the intensity from an emotional perspective. When that happens on ‘Haunted by Dreams’ (‘梦缠绕的时候’), I feel I would be very happy if this were played on the radio. The times I get properly worked up, instead of just conditionally hopeful, are two. The first is when ‘Poem of Death’ (‘生命之诗’) transitions from a nasty rhythmic preoccupation to a sudden semi-speed section that knocks the rest of the album pretty much out of the park in terms of intensity and ideas; the second is when ‘1999’ (‘一九九九’) cooks in similar fashion from the off, showing a band capable of producing great excitement, though not really the instrumental settings to attempt it in that manner. Obviously, a great deal of soloing gets the job done better, while the simple chorus of ‘1999’ helps achieve memorability, even for non-Chinese speakers.

Overall, I feel that 超载 is too much a product of its time and place to appeal widely beyond fans of Chinese rock and metal with ballads. The way that Overload approach writing their songs carries too much fat and mixes styles that I personally find contradictory, since I’m either here for feelings or for lots of flashy riffs and solos but rarely both, while whole sections drag far too much to allow the album to flow. Nonetheless, mistakes were often made around this time, especially in the growing East Asian scene; and besides, this was nowhere near as awkward as what happened to Overload next. But you’d have to wait 6 years to see that happen…