天幕落 / Terminal Lost - 卷贰 凤凰山 / Volume II - Fengyangshan (2012) - The best melodic black metal release of the year - 95% (26/07/12)

Throughout the last years, more and more promising Chinese metal bands released their first couple of records and started to spread the word of a new creative, cultural and musical movement within this fascinating country. This new wave has more artistic freedom than ever before and also slowly starts to get recognized in the Western world. Terminal Lost are one of those new bands and they put out their second full length release earlier this year. The new record is definitely one of the extreme metal highlights of the year and should get more attention.

The band basically plays black metal with a lot of symphonic influences that give the whole thing an atmospheric gothic touch. Therefor, this melodic and in some ways even progressive release should please to fans of bands such as Dimmu Borgir or Cradle Of Filth without sounding as predictable and instrumentally overloaded as those band's latest records. Fans of brutal, depressive or thrashened black metal will probably not like this release but it could also please to fans of gothic, progressive and symphonic metal. The band includes some traditional Chinese folk influences from time to time. They also add a couple of melodic and very well played passioante guitar solos to their sound. All these elements are very well employed in little doses. The record remains interesting and surprising without lacking of coherence and a quite unique band sound.

Especially the second half of the album contains many great songs. "神的召唤 (The Call of God)" is one of the best extreme metal instrumentals of the last years for example. It has some electronic elements mixed with folk sounds and develops a majestic and mysterious atmosphere that never gets redundant in over six minutes of running time. "弑 · 征途 (Journey of the Murderers)" has some great piano melodies that send shivers down my spine. Later, we hear a very well done guitar solo. There are many subtle changes of atmosphere in this track that tells us and epic story that seems to be quite well elaborated from what I understand of it. This music truly creates images in my mind and has a very visual side. A really big surprise comes next with "永冻之夜 (Night of the Permafrost)" which happens to be my favourite piece on this excellent release. The song starts with some jazz piaos that make me think of some progressive stuff like UneXpect but the whole thing doesn't sound experimental, progressive or schizophrenic. It's used in small doses once again and fits very well to the song that develops a gripping atmosphere. Some technoid keyboard influences make me later think of early Amorphis or Therion. This is a song to listen to more than just once or twice and that gets more and more intense each time you listen to it.

The band overall varies its style from slower pieces like the almost balladesque "转世轮回 (Reincarnation)" that also features a few clean vocals that come as a good surprising element even though they could be performed with more passion to quite fast paced pieces like "妖祸 (Demon Curse)" that could come from a band like Absu but that always has some symphonic breaks that remind me of stuff like Eternal Tears Of Sorrow. The band works as well with folk passages as with more cinematic and symphonic approaches, for example in the album's most epic track that is "弑 · 战歌 (Battle Hymn of the Patricide)" and that features some gothic choirs. They touch quite everything an fan of melodic black metal could like. The best thing is that the whole thing is performed by skilled musicians and also has a rather good production. Personally, I would like to add the positive fact that the band uses quite no blast beats at all. Many bands of the genre flaw their interesting sound with dumb and generic blast beat passages. This isn't the case on this release at all and the drumming is quite diversified and elaborates a good background rhythm section with the bass guitar. Great guitar riffs and solos and many good sounding and not artificially flavoured keyboards dominate the sound with the solid vocals that make me think of the Chinese genre colleagues of Screaming Savior. The vocals could though be a little bit more diversified and passionate but they are still enjoyable to listen to and should even please to fans of softer sounds as they are not too agressive but rather atmospheric, enchanting and expressive.

In the end, Terminal Lost released a true melodic black metal gem that is among the best releases of its kind of the year. I will seriously try to purchase this record and to follow and spread the name of this promising band. The whole album can though easily be found on the internet and that's why any fan of this genre should take its time to check this out. This release will easily rank in my top ten of the year and I'm sure that more people may like it once they discover this rather unknown band.