Takasago Army

With a dizzying blend of power metal and symphonic black metal, Taiwanese metal band Chthonic take on their homeland's history once again on their sixth studio album, Takasago Army. With a narrative based on the story of the Takasago Volunteers, a group of guerilla fighters in the Japanese Imperial Army who were recruited from the Taiwanese aboriginal tribes during the Second World War, the story helps to create an atmosphere of violence, death, and conflict that just feels natural among the crawling guitar work and gloomy synthesizers. While the album certainly delivers on the darkness, it manages to keep from being too suffocating thanks to the band's bombastic power metal, allowing songs like “Oceanquake” to give listeners a respite from the ever-encroaching blackness. Aside from a pair of instrumental tracks, Takasago Army is a pretty relentless ordeal that assaults metal fans with a nearly endless barrage of thundering double-kick drums and crunching guitar heaviness. Add Chthonic’s use of traditional Taiwanese instruments on songs like “Legacy of the Seediq” and you have an album that will satisfy any black metal fan who's looking for something a little different to add to their rotation. ~ Gregory Heaney