In J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Sauron is the ruler of Mordor and the
incarnation of all evil, and in his quest for total dominion he sends the
Ringwraiths out to scour Middle-Earth. But that, of course, is only a
fantasy world. In East Asia, the closest we can come to this kind of stuff
is Japan, where the Evil Lord is called Hello Kitty and her black messengers
include Abigail, the Evilest Band in Japan. They have a plan to blacken the
light of the sun and enslave all that is to darkness, and part of it entails
Abigail's coming to Taiwan, where they'll play at Taipei's Zeitgeist
tomorrow night in a show starting at 8pm. The warm-up band is called Snow
Dance(雪舞).
According to various Japanese metal Web sites, Abigail was formed in 1992 in
a cesspool of early Japanese thrash and black metal. They descended into
this unholy abyss not by injecting blowfish poison and carving inverted
crosses on their forearms, but by taking inspiration from bands like Sodom,
Hellhammer, Bathory and Celtic Frost. It must have been pretty righteous. A
trio of throat, guitar and drums, they made their first recording, Abigail
Demo#1 1992, and subsequently released it (presumably at some low level)
into the black metal world. From there they went on to record Descending
from a Blackened Sky, Screaming for Grace and their most recent collection,
Intercourse and Lust. Two tracks from this last album can be heard at
http://trasite.com/abigail. Listen to them and you will hear a
teeth-gnashing guitar, 250 drum beats per minute and screams of the undead.
Zeitgeist(聖界) is located at B1, 122 Chunghsiao E. Rd, Sec. 2, Taipei
(台北市忠孝東路二段122號B1). Admission is NT$300 in advance, NT$350 at the
door.
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