By RYAN DYER
Taiwanese black metal duo Laang 冷 (“cold”) is a cathartic project that explores the struggle of trauma and recovery. It was born from a near-death experience involving vocalist-guitarist Haitao Yang, in which he was the victim of a car-jacking gone wrong. Yang was shot in the head during the incident, which left him medically dead for a short time. In this purgatory, he experienced hallucinations of a “place beyond hell.” Deeply affected by this incident and the otherworldly visions that came with it, Yang created Laang (enlisting bassist Wily “Krieg” Tai and session drummer Zak King in 2020) as a method of externalizing this trauma.
After releasing two albums and being featured in Peter Daskaloff’s 2021 horror film, Antidote (2021), Laang’shas recorded their third album, RILUO (Sunset), released on November 24 via Talheim Records. Featuring eight tracks of tormenting black metal, RILUO explores the experience of dying and the subsequent feelings of detachment Yang continues to cope with in the wake of life-altering trauma. Yang discloses details about the fateful incident and how exactly they (and their aftermath) connect with Laang’s lyrics, artwork and overall presentation, culminating in RILUO.
Before starting Laang, and before the incident, what did your life look like?
I was a pretty unremarkable guy, to be honest. I was a university student, had been involved in a number of metal bands that didn’t do anything very interesting, and was really just another nerdy metalhead. I’d been a musician since I was 12 and was in the early stages of starting a career in music production, so I was already on a logical path to where I am now musically. I’d say I was very naive back then, and while I wasn’t an optimist, I think I had a very idealistic view of many things.
Can you describe the night of the car-jacking gone wrong (as much as you’re willing to disclose)?
As one can probably imagine, it’s honestly something I don’t like reliving. A lot of my memory of the event is hazy, probably partly because of the injury and partly from the traumatic nature of the event. I was returning to my car in a car park, and there were two people next to it. I just remember one starting to walk toward me, and then, I was on the ground, and I couldn’t feel anything. There was this horrible, complete cold numbness throughout my whole body and a feeling of blood that I just can’t describe.
I was shot in the upper right side of the head, shattering that part of my skull. If the bullet was just slightly to the left, I likely wouldn’t be writing this right now. Pretty much everything from that moment to months later is a blur. There were hospitals, surgeries, physical therapy, mental health therapy and so much more.
Was Laang created as an outlet for the thoughts built up due to this experience?
Entirely, yes. I needed an outlet to externalize my thoughts and feelings. The music wasn’t even initially meant for others. It was a chance for me to express myself with no intention other than to allow myself to feel what I was feeling. Much like how people write in journals to keep track of their progress, Laang was a way for me to release my emotions and a way to see my recovery progress. Each album represents a different stage of my recovery.
Our first album, Haiyang (Ocean), was born from when I was terrified, very haunted by the experience and trying to rationalize what had happened. Our second album, Xinteng (Misery) came from the struggles of recovery and feelings of depression and isolation as a survivor … RILUO now reflects on the event – shares pieces of my experience I wasn’t comfortable sharing before, and mourns the loss of who I was and the acceptance of becoming who I am now.
How long were you medically dead?
Just over a minute, I’ve been told. I’ve heard of people being revived after hours of being medically dead, which is incredible. If I’ve been this impacted by just one minute, I can’t imagine what their experiences must be.
You have said you experienced nightmare hallucinations of another world, a “place beyond hell.” Do you remember any vividly?
Hallucinations is probably the best word I can think of in English to represent what I experienced, but it’s not necessarily visions in the typical sense. It was more of an overwhelming feeling that completely enveloped me. In hindsight, this may have been the sensation of dying. The closest thing I can describe to a sensory experience was being in an infinitely large space with no light or dark, just an infinite plane of nothingness that I somehow completely occupied. But the feeling was this feeling of complete isolation, being completely and hopelessly removed from everything else. But despite this isolation, there was a deep, insidious fear with no clear source, like a subconscious dread of something haunting or even hunting me. It was terrifying.
Are any of these visions reconstructed in the lyrics or album art?
Since there wasn’t necessarily a visual component in the traditional sense, it’s hard to make a visual representation of what I experienced. I selected the Haiyang album art for its representation of some horrible terror beyond my comprehension. The Xinteng art with jellyfish I made because I feel jellyfish are a surprisingly accurate representation of how I felt, floating aimlessly in a vast ocean, neither truly alive nor dead. The artwork for RILUO I made combines both the feeling of the vast ocean and the setting sun, representing the loss of my old self within that ocean. Lyrically, I do my best to represent the experience, but it’s honestly something I struggle to accurately put into words.
RILUO is your third album. As far as the message and musicality of the band, how does it compare to your first two?
The message is definitely a reflection of where I am in my recovery now, many years since the incident. I hesitate to say the message is hopeful because it’s not. It’s very bleak. But I think it reflects my own growing confidence in regaining control of my life and, hopefully, can be a testament to perseverance. Musically, I think this is probably our most post-black metal album. Whereas Haiyang was very dissonant and chaotic and Xinteng was depressive with elements of doom, this album is more of a combination. RILUO has far more blast beats and tremolo-picked sections, and there is a more familiar technique in my vocal style. At the same time, it is still very Laang – meaning, it’s still very melodic, draws inspiration from far more than black metal and the vocal style is still closer to a pained hardcore sound than the cliché Satanic black metal sound we’ve heard since the ’80s. I think the musical sound is more mature and consistent on this album and hopefully, listeners will enjoy it!
Laang’s spirituality consists of Chinese Taoism with Indian Buddhism combined with indigenous cultures and your traumatic experience. How do you balance everything aesthetically and musically with these influences?
My own spirituality is complicated. I’d self-describe as an atheist, but I think elements of spirituality shape my view on life, death and impermanence. The idea of evil, death and hell is far more complex and nuanced within these spiritual views compared to the typical Western position. There isn’t a true hell as Westerners see it, and this idea of a complete evil or complete good is unrealistic, as everything exists within a balance. To me, death is just one of many inevitable stages in our life cycle, and our passing is just the first stage in being returned to the earth and sea we were born from.
I think, musically and aesthetically, this is where two recurrent themes arise. One is I find myself often writing “I smile” in response to something about my own suffering and death in my lyrics. This is something I struggle to understand myself, as it’s not celebrating my suffering nor is it welcoming it. It’s a complicated feeling of acceptance and neutrality in my own powerlessness and struggle with mortality.
Another theme is lyrical references to water. I repeatedly use this metaphor to describe death, and I think spiritually this relates to the ebb and flow of life, much like the tides. The ocean gives life as easily as it takes it. But we don’t consider the ocean evil. We find it beautiful.
The title track, “Rilou 日落,” is your way of saying goodbye to the man you were before. The lyrics go, “I can never forget, I can only regret, And my regrets hold me tight. If I could turn back time, I can’t promise to be different. But I promise to try.” Is it your most personal song?
It’s certainly the most personal song on this album. Overall, it’s hard to pick a single most personal song. Each album represented a different stage of where I was in my recovery at that time. For how I feel this year, RILUO is absolutely the most emotional and personal to me. But on our first album, Haiyang, my most personal song was “Yan,” and on Xinteng, my most personal song was “Dongshang.”
RILUO is very personal to me because it’s really my attempt to reach a state of acceptance. I can’t change anything or what happened to me, no matter how much I want to. I can be frustrated and miserable about my life today, but that doesn’t help anything. The bitter truth is this is my life now. As the sun sets on my past life, a new sun will, hopefully, rise for my new one.
Tell me about your debut music video.
I’m really excited for this video to be released! We worked with an animation team for this video to create a story-based music video in a traditional Asian watercolour art style. It took approximately three months to animate and had a team of nine artists working on it, which was a crazy experience to work with.
The video is heavily based on metaphor. On the surface, it’s a video of someone driven to their death in their mourning for someone else. Beneath that level, there are metaphors of the loss of yourself, abandonment, the repression of trauma, hopelessness, and, of course, many subtle references to my own experience and recovery.
The song itself, translating to “The Bleeding Sun,” is my personal favourite on the album that I feel I connected very closely with on an emotional level. I hope our listeners and viewers will feel this same emotional impact.
