In China, where subcultures are critically eyed, censored, and sometimes sanctioned, heavy metal – Zhòngjīnshǔ 重金属 in Chinese – has established itself as a solid niche since the early 1990s. The scene here is rarely political or socially critical. Instead, local color is an important selling point. Many bands are proud to address their history. The use of traditional instruments such as the knee fiddle is a standard for many groups, as is a country-specific aesthetic. A combination of hard rock music and Chinese elements is not always easy to digest. Some bands take to the stage in kitschy Hanfu costumes, while others specialize in patriotic irritant themes like the Nanjing Massacre.

One band that has perfected the tightrope walk between tradition and heavy metal aesthetics is the group Zuriaake, or Zàngshīhú 葬尸湖 in Chinese – “Lake of Buried Corpses” – founded in Jinan in 1998. To date, it is unknown who is behind the formation. The members neither show their faces nor use clear names. Zuriaake plays black metal, the most extreme form of heavy metal. The singer of the band goes by the stage name Bloodfire. He explained in one of his rare interviews that Zuriaake was formed to escape the “desert of modern culture”.

Band members remain unknown

Their debut album “Afterimage Of Autumn”, released in 2007, is considered one of the classics of Chinese heavy metal. Its atmospheric keyboard passages evoke not the dark, snow-covered forests of Norway – the birthplace of the genre – but the enchanted chasms of Taishan, one of Daoism’s five sacred mountains. The bamboo flute tells of world-weary loneliness and social alienation – the self-chosen counterculture of hermits has a millennia-old tradition in China. “As a carrier of a philosophy, black metal is a music of loneliness,” Bloodfire explains in the interview.

Zuriaake’s album covers depict dilapidated pagodas but also traditional ink painting, which here transforms quite naturally into “Chinese Gothic”: The empty spaces of the Shanshui paintings seem shrouded in mist, the twisted, dabbed branches windswept and restless. It is a darkness that has always been there, but in China’s art-historical reception has taken a back seat to the nature-loving grandeur of monkish life.

Like a funeral ceremony in the Chinese countryside

In their lyrics, Zuriaake refers to the poet Qu Yuan, who was born in 340 BC during the turbulent age of the “Warring States Period” and is said to have drowned himself on a full moon night in 278. In their composition process, the word came first, Bloodfire explains. “China is a country that deeply reveres its written language. We believe that our ancestors created the most beautiful and meaningful poems in the world. Chinese characters have their unique soul. We engrave these words into each and every song and mix them with the drops of our blood.”

Zuriaake’s artistic vision, however, is most clearly revealed at their concerts. Their stage outfits are coarse, tattered robes of linen and raven-black rice farmer hats that permanently shroud their faces in shadow. “Our costumes are based on the ancient poem ‘Jiang Xue’,” Bloodfire explains. It says: “an old man in a straw cloak and hat, sitting alone in the snow in a boat, fishing in the freezing, snow-covered river” (孤江蓑笠翁，独钓寒江雪).

Zuriaake shows are as theatrical as a funeral service in provincial China, and steeped in the awareness that the afterlife is working through this world at every moment. “Even though I listen to rock, even though I strive for freedom, even though I’ve been abroad and exposed to a foreign culture, I can’t scrub those elements from my bones,” Bloodfire says. “The screams that come out of my mouth will inevitably be Chinese.”