Show Report: Narakam

It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m standing conspicuously inside the Backstreet Bar on Fenghuang St. in Suzhou, China. The planned show today, headlined by the popular Chinese group, Narakam, is not even officially underway and already I’m learning that even though things are little bit different here (Who ever heard of a Metal show starting at 2pm anyway?), the relative shortage of extreme music inside China has created some truly dedicated fans. Case in point: I meet a young kid who arrived in Suzhou by bus this morning from a neighboring city. We talk briefly as he smartens me up regarding the lineup for today’s show. His family name is Liu; he likes Dream Theater and the Detroit Pistons and he’s been at the club for three hours. Waiting. I look around and see about two-dozen more kids his age gathering at the door and around the stage for the start of the opening band’s set. Some wear leather jackets and Metal tees; others dress more modestly. They all look ready, anxious, and practically starving for Heavy Metal. Right now, I feel the same way. It’s been almost an entire year since I’ve been to a show. The opera just isn’t gonna cut it this time.

Only a few feet in front of me a group of kids are just now plugging in. The drummer is wearing an Obituary shirt. The singer/guitarist is decked out in a white button-down shirt underneath a snug, purple sweater vest. He looks like he came straight from school. He’s playing a Randy Rhoads model Jackson guitar. The band’s name is Mo Ye and they begin the show with three songs of straightforward Power Metal outlined by glowing keyboard fills and raspy vocals emanating from the singer’s small, clean-cut form. Immediately, the crowd starts going nuts, linking arm-in-arm with their friends and – in a form of head-banging that has yet to be documented as far as I know - pounding the shit out of their skulls toward the stage.

It’s this amazing expression of camaraderie and weirdly organized aggression that defines the whole scene. So far, the music is fine for what it is, but the crowd’s passion is absolutely infectious. Already, I’m thinking back to the too many stolid and indifferent crowds back home. How small and timid they seem now by comparison. I’ve seen the stuffy, garage-space basement formerly at North Six and the pitiful “Tap Bar” at the Knitting Factory in NY, both about the same size as the floor at the Backstreet, but I’ve never seen an audience this size completely rage from start to finish. Among this small crop of music fans nothing is taken for granted.

During the break, another kid introduces himself to me, but I don’t catch his name - the club’s sound system is too loud. He looks at the Baphomet drawing on my Angel Witch shirt and asks if I like Black Metal, adding something else that I don’t quite hear. I lean closer and he cups his mouth and speaks directly into my ear. “Do you like B-U-R-Z-“

“Yes!” And I’m close to dizzy now as he explains that the name of the next band, Sheng Zhu, means “The Tomb of the God” and that they play Black Metal.


Well, technically, he’s right. The black-nailed vocalist and jet-black haired female bass player from Sheng Zu acquire the same keyboardist and drummer from Mo Ye (No idea if this is a regular thing) and launch into three songs of generic, symphonic-styled Black Metal. I’ve seen the last Dimmu Borgir album in just about every music and DVD store I’ve been to around the country, so I guess that explains it. The set doesn’t last long, however, and by now the place is completely filled. There’s only one more band left on the bill: Beijing’s Narakam.


Formed in 2007 by guitarist Chen Xi from the ashes of his former band, Hades, Narakam is China’s heaviest of the heavies and stands at the center of the genre’s development inside the country. Chen Xi himself is co-founder of Chinese Metal mag, Painkiller and runs Mort Productions, The PRC’s first underground Metal label, which has just released Narakam’s latest disc, Burning At Moment as well as a new compilation CD entitled Resurrection of The Gods. Suzhou is the ninth stop on the band’s month long countrywide tour in support of the new album.

While it’s still confusing for foreigners like myself to grasp the history of the band, still known locally as Mingjie (Hades), the group insists their current lineup has always been called Narakam, a Sanskrit word similarly and most commonly used to denote hell. “It’s very difficult to translate in English,” Chen explains to me through the band’s manager and interpreter, Nike. “Narakam means an unknown world, something like a ghost or energy, the underworld” The band chose the name because they want “to search the future, the meaning of the future, the unknown future.”

Whatever you want to call them, the band’s live set easily pushes the crowd over the edge – the powerhouse title-track off the new album causing everyone on the floor to again link arms to form a reinforced wall of furious head-bangers. Kids are now clawing at vocalist Tian Kui as he beckons them to join in the song’s spectral chorus line, as if he had a choice. The whole room is now crooning together with hair flying and hands throwing horns toward the stage.


Musically, Narakam does not fit neatly into any one subgenre. The eight tracks that feature on the new album are made up of strong combinations of grooves, throttling drum beats, fast strumming, throbbing bass lines, melodic, twin leads and heavy guitar churns. On record, Tian Kui frequently alternates between “clean” voices and deathly growls. At the show, he wears a stylish dress shirt but barks like a fuckin’ demon. Sometimes the music sounds like new-school Death Metal, sometimes more like Bay Area Thrash.

Like everyone else on the planet, the members of Narakam first discovered Rock and Heavy Metal in their early to mid-teens. Chen Xi grew up listening to the Rolling Stones while bassist Guo Jian started listening to Metallica at 14, which might explain why he doesn’t play using a pick (thank you). Tian Kui liked Guns N Roses and their drummer, Wang Yanan, mentions Tang Dynasty, China’s pioneering Heavy Metal group who blended Rock and Metal with traditional Chinese music. When Narakam’s second guitarist, Xue Wen, quietly tells me he discovered Metal through Korn, the rest of the band abruptly bursts into laughter. “He is the youngest member of the band,” explains Nike. Today the group is more influenced by old standards like Nevermore, Megadeth and Testament, whom the band paid tribute to in concert last year with a cover of “Down For Life.”

Indeed, there’s not much music that hasn’t filtered into China over the last decade, and this latest generation has formed identities based not only on their cultural upbringing, but also the competitive mindset that continually drives music into more extreme territory. The opening riff to “Diamond & Rust” off Burning At Moment for instance, could easily pass for something by Cannibal Corpse, but the song soon maneuvers into a craggy, staccato Thrash verse turned inside out by a foreboding, almost operatic chorus. The band’s lyrics also mirror the album’s moody contrasts, plowing through the negative in search of something more. “We want to express the pain, the sorrow, and disappointment in the world,” says Chen Xi. “We want to find a way to explore this feeling and to try to convince the people that there can be a better way to live.”

I think it’s working. Throughout the entire set I watch as nearly everyone mouths the words to Narakam’s songs, some even getting the chance to scream them into Tian Kui’s microphone. As the band follows up a fierce cover of Sepultura’s “Refuse/Resist” with a finale of their own “Chainheart City Banished,” the fans practically swallow them in appreciation. There is no longer any boundary between audience and performers. It’s all one big mass of flailing flesh moving to the epic rhythms hammered out on drums and guitar.
“When we were 18 years old, it was almost impossible finding CDs and cassettes,” Tian Kui tells me after the show. “But today, we have the Internet and websites to help promote the band and find new information.” When asked if they’re concerned at all about censorship, the band’s reply is quick but untroubled. “No,” says Nike. “China is very free.” And while some may pause at the simplicity and plainness of this response, one also has to take into account the numerous “obscenity” trials held in Western countries over the last two decades.

While most of the room clears out after the show, several fans stick around to have their posters signed and picture taken with the band. The future of Metal in China is steadily taking shape among young people in simple shows just like this one, where every performance becomes a small triumph in building a stronger and more cohesive scene.

As for Narakam, their future remains at least partly known. The band plans to release a 3 CD plus DVD box-set in honor of their 15th anniversary and hopes to make there way further into China: Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan and eventually want to perform in the United States and Europe. The question that then needs to be asked is not if they’re ready, but are we?

[Todd DePalma]

type: articles    keywords: heavy metal, show report, stranger in a strange land,   

• Posted by deena on Apr 22, 2008 at 2:17 PM
  
  Thanks for posting this!!
  One question: what do the Chinese fans understand by the "devil's horns" salute, given that they have no satan etc. in their religion?
  
  \m/ deena
  
  
• Posted by The Visitor on Apr 22, 2008 at 9:50 PM
  
  Thanks for the review - I was in China last year and despite all their problems, it is a wonderful country. I wish all the best to their metal community.
  
  
  
• Posted by Todd on Apr 22, 2008 at 11:01 PM
  
  From what I gather, flashing the "devil horns" in China is mostly just a kind of mimicked behavior and is used to symbolize both rock / heavy metal. However, there are some black metal groups like Evilthorn and Ululate who identify with some conception of "evil" and take a more militant stance with their music, similar to what we see in the Western underground.
  
  You can find more information about the history of rock & metal in China, as well as wikipedia style entries on various bands, here:
  
  http://www.rockinchina.com
  
  If anyone wishes to contact Narakam directly, you can email Nike Pan at:
  
  nike [at] spirits dot com dot tw
  
  
  
  
• Posted by Zach Dionne on Apr 24, 2008 at 4:49 AM
  
  Very cool, man. Super interesting to read about metal in a place where it's just making its way. Great article.
  
  

 

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