Laang 冷 self-classify as “black metal from Taiwan based on the trauma of a survivor”. Singer and guitarist Haitao Yang started the project in 2018, 18 months after he was declared medically dead: the Taiwanese-Norwegian musician was shot during an attempted carjacking.
“I was in the US at the time,” Haitao, now based in Tennessee, tells Hammer. “I was returning to my car in a car park, and there were two people standing next to it I didn’t know. I just remember one of them walking towards me and then I was on the ground, and I couldn’t feel anything. It just felt very cold, very numb.”
Haitao was shot in the head, with shrapnel scraping the upper-right side of his brain. Following the placement of steel plates in his skull and extensive physical therapy, he thankfully recovered. However, the trauma persisted long afterwards, hence the need for Laang 冷 as what the frontman likens to a “diary”.
“I don’t think I’m really the best at expressing myself, verbally or in writing,” Haitao explains. “The ability to literally put my body into it is something that’s really helpful for expressing that kind of emotion. This is something where I just wanted to scream: I was fucking unhappy.”
Haitao had a history of making metal well before Laang 冷. The musician lived in Taiwan until he was seven, then his family moved to Norway, where he remained until well into adulthood.
“I was in bands [in Scandinavia], but none of them were very good,” Haitao laughs. “I was in some black metal bands and power metal bands, and none of them really did anything interesting, but I didn’t have as much of a connection to them. In a lot of ways, [Laang 冷] was the first thing where I could actually really be like, ‘Wow, this is very personal to me.’”
Laang 冷 (Mandarin Chinese for “cold”) are also composed of bassist Willy “Krieg” Tai and released their debut album, Hǎiyáng 海洋 (“ocean”), in 2019. Their newest, Riluo 日落 (“sunset”), continues to explore Haitao’s trauma, yet also carries acceptance, waving a metaphorical goodbye to the man the musician once was.
“I’m not saying goodbye to the trauma,” he says, “but I’m just not the person I was before. I can be frustrated all the time about things I can’t do anymore, but that doesn’t change it. In this case, the sunset is trying to just reconcile and say this [trauma] is a part of my life now.”
Laang 冷’s raw black metal also taps into Haitao’s Taiwanese identity using instruments like the erzu, while the synths and vocals carry the urgency of melodeath. It’s a combination that, together with the incredibly evocative backstory, is seeing the band resonate across the extreme metal underground.
“I’ve had people with similar experiences approach me on tour or social media, saying they really appreciate having something that allows them to not suffer in as much silence,” Haitao says. “Seeing that this is helpful for other people is really rewarding, and I think that’s probably the most that I could hope for.”
Riluo 日落 is out now via Talheim.
