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Boy, the new Zeal & Ardor album is good.

Oh, that's probably bad. I shouldn't start out with the direct opinion, right? It defeats the purpose of you reading the rest of the article. But, then again, I can't be accused of burying the lead. Maybe what I should do is act like I didn't start with any of this. I could edit it out I guess, but... no, that seems like work.

Anyway, Zeal & Ardor is basically a one man show from the brain of American/Swiss genius Manuel Gagneux. He started the band when he went on 4Chan and asked people to post two genres and he'd make a song about it. Since it’s 4Chan, black metal came up and was immediately followed by a racial slur. Rather than quit the endeavour he was on, he decided to take up the challenge and created a track with black metal elements and Southern Black spirituals; and thus we now have Zeal & Ardor. 

Now those that know me are not shocked to learn that both Devil is Fine and Stranger Fruit, the 2017 and 2018 releases respectively, were both high on my albums of the year, and though the Wake of a Nation EP didn't quite hit me like the others, the track "Vigil" is probably the most powerful song of protest that cropped up around the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, and the fact that more people aren't aware of it is really a disservice. Go listen to it right now and then come back to this article. The great thing about reading something is you don't even need to hit pause to do something else.

Welcome back. How was the rabbit hole you went down about baseball cards? Good. Great; let's get back to this.

So here we are in 2022 and he comes out with a new self-titled album, a move that I never understand why bands do once the first record is released. That's your chance! Take advantage of it.

On first listen, I was met with a feeling that the album was more of the same; that essentially the band was staying in place and not really moving too far out of it, but upon further listens, I think I have changed that opinion a bit.

Yes, this is still a combo of metal elements with spirituals, the most "traditional" of which is probably "Death to the Holy," which contains all the elements one would expect from a typical Zeal & Ardor track. But the band has branched out of the black metal realm and is now drawing on other metal elements to add to their sound. In particular there's a lot of different styles that are being drawn from, to some straight thrash guitar passages to occasional groove metal elements that are cropping up on this record, "Götterdämmerung" being the chief example of the latter with its chunky guitar riffs. But, all of these extra elements are fairly short and I think really only stand out upon at least a second listen. So, while the record seems to be a standard record, it's actually doing subtle expansion of its genre reach.

It is not, however, a perfect record. Chiefly it has some filler content that I'm not sure does much except to lengthen the run time. In particular the final two tracks, "J-M-B" and "A-H-I-L," don't really add a whole lot, which is supremely disappointing especially given the strong ender to Stranger Fruit, "Built On Ashes," which wrapped the album pretty nicely. 

In this same vein, I could also lump the self-titled intro track into this discussion, but intro tracks or passages to records are so common at this point it almost seems like required material. I suppose "Emersion" could also fit into this filler since it sounds like a mashup of an Owl City and old Emperor track, but the sheer novelty of writing that sentence automatically gives it a pass.

So, this isn't my favourite Zeal & Ardor record, though I do find I enjoy it the more I listen. The fact that Manuel is still putting in the effort of adding elements and reinventing what the band can do is probably going to make it a record of the year. If you haven't been on the train before now, it's probably time to check out what this madman has gifted us all.

In 2019 and 2020, Pest Productions, A black metal label from China, released two compilations of emerging Chinese black metal on Bandcamp. New bands with a diverse range of black metal subgenres were introduced in the compilations, including old school bm, blackened death, dsbm, nihilist bm, black/thrash, post bm/blackgaze, symphonic bm, as well as folk bm, which gave birth to the New Wave of Chinese Black Metal. This year in January, Pest Productions have returned with the third compilation, bringing more talented Chinese black metal bands to overseas metal fans (I posted links at the bottom of the article of the three compilations which are free to download on Bandcamp). Based on this new extreme trend, I conducted this interview with two of my friends, AymParch and Dyingflames, who have been playing very active and important roles in Chinese underground metal communities.

DY: Can you tell us what are your roles in Chinese underground black and death metal communities and when did you both get involved?

AP: First of all, thanks for inviting us, really appreciate that. I’m currently working for Pest Productions (PR & promotion) and Dienysian Records (co-editor). Dyingflames and I got in touch and quickly became friends over a decade ago via some online forums. In 2015 we were invited by Zquagmire (another old friend and a very prolific artist in the Chinese extreme underground) to start a raw black metal project, together with Huai Wei (bassist for Black Kirin and Skeleton Augury). That project eventually turned into R.N.V. in 2017 when Dyingflames and I decided to start playing live shows. Right now R.N.V. is the main band I’m working on, with Nanjing-based bm veteran Lv Bo (复活 (Resurrection), Holokastrial, ex-Delirious) behind drums. There’s another side project I’m working on with Lv and that’s about it.

I was one of those close friends who joined Dienysian as co-editors after Dyingflames founded it around 2016. We have been long fans of Pest Productions and their music since we first got into the Chinese black/death scene. I met Deng, the owner, in 2016 at their 10 years anniversary show in Shanghai. Since then, I’d been helping Pest with some trivia like translating and writing promos, and eventually became an official member in late 2019.

DF: Thanks a lot for the opportunity here. I work for a venue and manage the shows every day, nearly half of the underground metal and punk shows took place at the club. AP and I are both in Dienysian Records and R.N.V. There is another band I’m in, Holokostrial, a Shanghai-based death metal band formed by guitarist Mammoth and me in 2014, also one of very few active death metal bands in eastern China. As for Dienysian, it is long time ago that I run a website page, maybe 2011 or earlier, we share metal album reviews (sometimes illegal download resources, I’m sorry) and recommend good bands from all over the world to our followers in China, then I changed name to Dienysian Records in 2016, and begin to hold some shows and release some music work. 

It is the same time I met Deng Zhang, just like AP. The Pest 10 years anniversary show was really awesome, almost everyone was there. Deng really helps me a lot on label working, and Dienysian posted many reviews and interviews for bands and releases from Pest, during 2018-2020 we worked closely, then I shifted focus on shows.  

DY: How does Chinese black metal distinguish itself from European or North American black metal? There are quite a few Chinese BM bands that have sort of Chinese traditional elements, and they also gained attention from overseas. But are the themes, or techniques different too?

AP: Music-wise, I don’t really see many differences to be honest, aside from those bands who manage to incorporate traditional Chinese elements into their music. One main reason is, after all, black metal is still a European genre, and we were more or less influenced by those classics and legends and their magnum opuses in the global scene. Also, Chinese BM is really diverse when it comes to writing styles and lyrics themes, so I don’t think there’s a distinct “Chinese sound” like that of Finnish/French/Icelandic BM – on that note, the situation here is somewhat similar to the North American BM scene.

DY: Since you’ve stayed in America and Canada, how do you find the black metal or death metal ambiances in North America different from those in China? 

AP: Personally speaking, I think 2015 marks a turning point for the Chinese underground music scene (including the indie and punk ones), more bands and resources have been introduced to China due to the globalization of the music industry in general and the amount of efforts made by many great underground labels. But they still differ from those in North America since Chinese underground music, in general, is still a niche subculture, compared to the popularity of its NA/EU counterparts. In terms of audiences at shows, it’s really hard to pinpoint their exact characteristics either (China or NA/EU). I do think that the Japanese scene (audiences, livehouses’ general ambiance, etc) stands out as some of the craziest. We had a great time three years ago over there during our Japan tour in support of Cult Of Fire and Zurriake.

DF: Actually, big cities are pretty good, many famous or underground death metal and black bands toured in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou in last 20 years. There are at least thousands of fans willing to pay for the show and other merches. When we took shows in other cities, things changed a lot, unlike NA, it is usual to find metalheads in almost every town or cities, fans are too concentrated in China. 

DY: What are obstacles you met or black/death metal might meet in Chinese mainland? Back to few years ago, shows were sometimes cancelled due to “unseeable reasons.” How is the situation nowadays? 

AP: Yes, censorship is definitely the biggest obstacle that show organizers and bands had to face prior to the global pandemic. We were once targeted by the local police and had to cancel our set. Fortunately, that didn’t affect the entire festival eventually. Great thing is, over the years, organizers have learned to cope with all the procedures, paperwork, and other nonsenses associated with live show censorship. I think Dyingflames can give you more detail since he’s super familiar with that.

DF: Obviously, censorship troubles us. In early days, 2012 or earlier, we can easily book shows we want without worrying about the date or place as long as it is not against government. My first band even played on a 400 people show at those years, our local newspaper posted it for promoting young culture. However, now we need to prepare the paperwork (ID, lyrics of course and more) plus lots of other sh*t, like audio or video of the songs we plan to play on stage, we send these materials to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and then wait one or two weeks for their opinions. Sometimes they don’t like the lyrics, though the lyrics has been “improved” and deleted all negative words. And sometimes they don’t like our dress, they want us to dress normal and keep our face and body clean. 

The worst thing is “report.” Even though we have permission to hold shows, shows could be reported to police office or the Ministry I mentioned. It is not possible that every show we strictly follow the rules, so if someone is not pleased with us, we metalheads, or the loud music, etc, these can be reasons for them to shut down the whole show. Today we meet the challenge from pandemic and policy control as well, increasing the risk of cancellation, every show during these years is under this uncertainty. 

DY: Did you collaborate with overseas bands? And can you tell us about the transnational practice of Chinese black metal or death metal in North America? 

AP: Yes, Pest Productions has been working with tons of overseas bands since the beginning. You can check them out on our official webpage, or do a quick little search on Metal Archives. Some of my personal favorites among our recent foreign releases are the Canadian-based Nordicwinter and his side project Autumn’s Tomb, the Brazilian folk/black metal genius Kaatayra and his other project Vauruvã. We will soon release Kostnatění’s latest EP in collaboration with US-based Dissociative Visions (Mystískaos).

I think a good chunk of the younger generation is represented by some promising acts either living overseas or making music in a transnational way. Such as some of our most recent signings like Merrow, Tomblord, and Golden Cat Pagoda. In terms of overseas labels, Under the Dark Soil (based in U.K.) and WV Sorcerer Productions (based in Paris) are two of our long-time collaborators, both were founded by diasporic Chinese. Go check them out. From my own experiences, it’s much easier right now to compose, record, and share demos with bandmates over the internet than 10 years or 15 years ago. Only bad thing is, you don’t get to enjoy the cathartic fun of regular rehearsal and post-rehearsal drinking bouts that often right now. 

DF: We interviewed and translated many classic articles of NA death metal bands in Weibo (Chinese Twitter), including some of the killer bands like Incantation, spreading seeds of pure darkness. It is more likely in the future we can see Chinese death metal bands working or touring in NA.

DY: How did bands and record labels tackle the pandemic in China? Are shows back?

AP: It’s the most difficult and the most annoying thing right now. Shows have already been back around late 2020, but right now everything’s so uncertain – many shows scheduled ahead could be canceled or forced to change lineups a couple of days before their scheduled date. We have had to already rearrange two major fests since 2022 because of last-minute imposed COVID restrictions.

DF: The shock does not take severely as we imagine, except the uncertainty of some shows, we are quite good. After all, the pandemic cannot make the censorship worse. 

DY: By the end, can you share or give us a list of bands that we can listen to.

AP: I will mostly talk about bands under Pest’s own banner: Zurriake/Yngizarm, Black Kirin, Deep Mountains, Be Persecuted, Vengeful Spectre, Dark Fount (new album coming next month), E.D.I.E.H., Screaming Savior, Urizen Society, Holyarrow. Two young projects I think deserve more overseas attention are Vitriolic Sage and 景湖白 (Scenery of Pale Lake) – highly recommended.

DF: Mvltifission, Globularcyst, 毒蛊 (Dugu), Chaotic Aeon, Ululate, The Dark Prison Massacre, also The Illusion of Dawn, Suriel, Skeletal Augury from Pest Productions.

Links to the Pest Productions Chinese black metal compilations:

- Death Kult Over Black Congregation I

- Death Kult Over Black Congregation II

- Death Kult Over Black Congregation III

We get it. Not everyone loves metal like we do. The harsh vocals, heavy distorted guitars and blast beats can often be a turn off. But even the most hardened metalheads didn’t start their musical journey listening to the most brutal of death metal bands. We had to be slowly eased into the genre, beginning with something accessible before diving deep into pure aggression.

Below, I will list three metal-adjacent solo artists who are adored in the metal scene. They have released material that is soothing, moody and beautiful, yet something dark lurks just beneath the surface. I will be recommending albums that are easy on the ears and, in any other circumstance, would be considered to be the complete opposite of heavy metal. Once you become accustomed to their voices and their style, you can then transition to some of their heavier releases and explore their collaborations with other metal artists.

All three artists are being represented by Sargent House, a label that has signed other artists who have been pushing the boundaries of loud music, such as post-metal band Russian Circles, anti-punk supergroup the Armed and blackgaze band Deafheaven. If you enjoy the sound of the Sirens of Sargent (somebody patent that!), then consider listening to their labelmates Ionna Gika and Alto Arc.

Chelsea Wolfe

Chelsea Wolfe is a gothic folk singer-songwriter from California. Her voice can be described as angelic, with a hint of pain. She dropped her first album The Grime and the Glow in 2010, but I wouldn't start there as an introduction; her experimentation with voice and guitar distortion might be jarring upon first listen.

Instead, I would suggest starting with her latest album, Birth of Violence, released in 2019. The sound of the record is intimate, atmospheric and at times, orchestral. There are some incredible harmonies on it, and you really feel like you’re being transported to another world. The songs were born out of the loneliness Wolfe experienced while on the road, a feeling any touring artist could relate to.

If you like what you hear, try listening to Pain Is Beauty next. Wolfe solidifies her style in this 2013 release, yet leaves the door open for future explorations. On the record following that, Abyss, Wolfe brings in elements of industrial. If you still want more, then you can tackle Hiss Spun, the heaviest of her solo records, wherein she weaves in harsh vocals and a drumming style typically heard in doom metal.

Once you’ve devoured her solo discography, you can then move onto her collaborations. Chelsea Wolfe has lent her voice on various songs, including “Funeral” by black metal band Myrkur, “Night People” by Deafheaven, and “Memorial” by Russian Circles. She also did a side project called Mrs. Piss with Jess Gowrie, drummer of stoner metal band Horseneck. Their album Self-Surgery was one of my favourite albums from 2020. Last year, Chelsea Wolfe joined forces with mathcore pioneers Converge and Cave In frontman Steve Brodsky to release Bloodmoon: I. Her soft vocals provide a stark contrast to the anguished shrieks of Converge’s Jacob Bannon, though Brodsky’s vocals help bridge that gap.

Keep an eye out for Wolfe’s future projects, including providing the soundtrack to Ti West’s upcoming A24 slasher X. You can already hear her unsettling cover of the 1918 Arthur Fields song “Oui Oui Marie.” 

Emma Ruth Rundle

Hailing from Portland, Emma Ruth Rundle has previously played in bands like Nocturnes and Marriages, but has made a name for herself with her solo work. 

I highly recommend starting with her latest album Engine of Hell. Rundle plays acoustic guitar, piano and occasionally strings to complement her gentle singing. Her voice sounds like it’s up close, like she is playing right in front of you at a coffee house. She takes a stripped-down approach compared to her previous releases. The inspiration for the album came to her when she had to spend some time in a mental hospital to recover from an addiction that she had developed on tour. You can follow up by listening to her 2014 debut Some Heavy Ocean. Her voice is a bit more distant on this and the sound is a lot bigger, as if she’s playing in a church, with a symphony behind her.

From there, you can move onto her 2018 album On Dark Horses, which brings in guitar distortion and thunderous percussion. I had the chance to see Emma Ruth Rundle play most of that album live, when she was opening up for Cult of Luna, though it was tough hearing her in a room full of rowdy metalheads.

She currently plays in post-rock group Red Sparowes, along with Bryant Clifford Meyer of post-metal legends Isis. Recently, she collaborated with Baton Rouge sludge metal band Thou, and released May Our Chambers Be Full in 2020, followed by The Helm of Sorrow, which features a cover of “Hollywood” by The Cranberries.

Appropriately, last year Emma Ruth Rundle and Chelsea Wolfe put out a track together called “Anhedonia.” Rundle’s smokey voice blends so well with Wolfe’s soprano vocals. Later this week, Emma Ruth Rundle will be releasing an EP called Orpheus Looking Back, which will include previously unreleased material from her Engine of Hell sessions.

Lingua Ignota

We now come to my favourite of the three artists, Lingua Ignota, also known as Kristin Hayter, a classically trained multi-instrumentalist who is not afraid to push her style to strange and new frontiers. Hayter describes her music as “survivor anthems,” having grappled with experiences of domestic violence. Her voice can convey a world of emotions, from sorrowful to vengeful.

Her latest album SINNER GET READY explores religious themes as she reconnects to her Catholic upbringing. The songs were written while she was recovering from a traumatic event, both physically and mentally, and take inspiration from the religious history of rural Pennsylvania. On the record, she integrates traditional instrumentation, but plays them in a dissonant fashion, giving off an eerie feeling. She sings in a sombre tone and at times, her voice sounds like it’s on the edge of breaking. On the second track, “I WHO BEND THE TALL GRASSES,” Hayter wails and growls, a small taste of her heavier material.

If you’re feeling bold, you can work your way backwards through her discography, from CALIGULA (my favourite record from 2019), to All Bitches Die and ending with LET THE EVIL OF HIS OWN LIPS COVER HIM. The songs on these are slow grinding, with industrial noise and her blood-curdling screams that you can feel in the pit of your soul, bookended with haunting classical moments and choral harmonies.

Lingua Ignota also features her vocals on tracks such as “Sickly Heart of Sand” by experimental metal duo The Body and “Armory of Obsidian Glass” by grindcore outfit Full of Hell. Having made these connections, Hayter formed an experimental noise project called Sightless Pit with Lee Buford of the Body and Full of Hell’s Dylan Walker, releasing their album Grave of a Dog in 2020.

Hayter has an impressive output. If you look up her Bandcamp profile, you’ll find demos, noise experiments and harrowing re-imaginings of songs like Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” and Eminem’s “Kim.”

Chris the Frog is the host of Sewer Spewer, a chaotic mix of punk, metal and noise from the undergrounds of Montreal, Canada and around the world, which airs on CJLO every Monday at noon.