Death to false metal !!! And death to people who would queue to pay 500 rmb to see Daft Punk in the first place !!!
Yes, tonight's show at Yuyintang was actually called Metal Night. Having been a huge metal fan once upon a time, I appreciate it mightily. The Shanghai metal scene has a few genres. This show was put on by a very specific group that play modern death metal.
The interesting side of this show, from the scene perspective, is that there is a lot of talent and potential in these bands but magazines, promoters, hipsters and scene-activists tend to think metal doesn't count. Of course, true metal fans know that thrash bands like Slayer were filling arenas and going platinum when top ten pop hits were making the charts based on dubious airplay and high school appearances. We shall conquer!
The first band on was Qi Ri (Seventh Day) who do not have any online demos that I'm aware of. They had the classic modern death metal line up complete with Gothic-organ keyboard stylings to compliment the melodic riffing breaks. They differ from some of the others in that they employ female opera style vocals. They were tight and they rocked. There's a video here. Next up was Screaming Christ who, unsurprisingly, sing in the Carcass style. They did a crowd pleasing set and you can hear their demos at their Douban page.
Last on were newish band Tu Bian 突变乐队. And here was my diamond in the rough. They were much more ambitious than the other bands and their singer was the stand out talent of the night. She mixed singing, rapping and also gurgling that would make Bill Steer proud. As usual, I hope they stick with it and get tight and confident because the potential is there. No pages or details for them yet though. The name means Mutate.
Yuyintang were handing out surveys all night and Sun Lu mentioned they were tossing the idea of opening a daytime coffee hangout around. It would be upstairs. If it's in the same style and played indie rock in the background then I'm there.
Leave a comment