CHTHONIC Prepares For ENSIFERUM Tour

The Taiwanese symphonic black metal band CHTHONIC kicks off the third and final leg of its European "UNlimited" tour Friday night (Nov. 30) in Hamburg, Germany. For the next two weeks, the group will support the Finnish "heroic folk metal" act ENSIFERUM.

CHTHONIC's European tour began earlier this month with a week's worth of UK dates with 3 INCHES OF BLOOD, with whom they shared the stage at this summer's Ozzfest. "Touring with 3 INCHES OF BLOOD made us miss the Ozzfest days," says CHTHONIC vocalist Freddy Lim. "We have so many good memories from Ozzfest, and we made so many friends there. I hope we can tour with such good bands again in the future."

The UK tour also included a stop at the inaugural Hard Rock Hell festival, where CHTHONIC performed alongside recent U.S. tour mates CRADLE OF FILTH as well as such legends as SAXON and TWISTED SISTER. "We were so excited when TWISTED SISTER took the stage," Lim admits. "Those old headbangers really encouraged us to keep rocking for many more decades!"

After a sold-out show in London, CHTHONIC flew to Lithuania to join MARDUK for a week's worth of dates in Eastern Europe and Finland. Lim explains that the tour again proved that metal truly knows no international boundaries, for sharing a bus were bands from three different countries (Sweden, Taiwan and Finnish support band HELLBOX),as well as a Dutch sound engineer and a Polish road crew. "We had so much fun," says Lim, "and even learned to curse in different languages!"

As Lim noted in the band's MySpace tour diary, before playing in the city of Riga in the Baltic country Latvia, CHTHONIC took the time to visit the city's Freedom Monument. In 1989, 2 million people formed a 400-mile human chain — the central point of which was Riga's Freedom Monument — from Estonia to Lithuania to demand independence from the Soviet Union. As an outspoken supporter of Taiwanese independence, the symbolism wasn't lost on Lim.

"The Baltic States were one of the most important places that I wanted to visit, and I never imagined I could realize the journey so soon through our European tour," he says. "We could feel the power of the people who stood up for their rights, and the fans there were great, even though it's still pretty unbelievable that we even have fans in this part of the world!"

Although their "UNlimited" tour will wrap up at the Hexentanz Festival in Illingen, Germany on Dec. 15, 2008 will see CHTHONIC more active than ever. First, SPV/Deathlight will release a new compilation, "Pandemonium", which features re-recorded versions of many older, hard-to-find CHTHONIC songs as well as several selections from their most recent studio album, "Seediq Bale". The band will also soon commence work on its as-yet-untitled fifth album, tentatively due out in the late spring/early summer. Expect a return to U.S. soil around that time.