Ὁπλίτης (Hoplites) on Subverting and Entangling Cultural Norms (Interview)

More often than not, aggression and instrumental dexterity delivers the bulk of extreme metal’s thematic impact, not its lyrics. This is not to say that the words are unimportant, just that they are more commonly undecipherable and not a focal point. Ὁπλίτης (translated from ancient Greek as Hoplites) works antithetical to that approach. 

It’s easy to lose yourself in their jarring web without realizing that sole member Liu Zhenyang sings entirely in ancient Greek. Rather than simply translating the lyrics through Google for performance’s sake, he aims to communicate well enough to converse with native Greek speakers from thousands of years ago. The proverbial robes Liu adorns as Ὁπλίτης do not celebrate a lost culture, as he has no interest in ancient mythology or philosophy. Instead, they serve as a means of self-expression and exploration.

Put simply, a Chinese metal artist with a suffocatingly dense style performing in ancient Greek was responsible for some of the year's most exciting albums. Within 10 months, Liu has released three albums (technically four, if you include his release under his other moniker, Vitriolic Sage), each exceeding in quality. The project’s backstory attracted its fair share of intrigue as online theories posited that Ὁπλίτης perform in ancient Greek to avoid censorship. While partially true, that puts the cart in front of the horse. 

The simple reasoning is that Liu is enamored with languages, previously claiming proficiency in around a dozen of them. However, he now humbly states that he only speaks his mother tongues, Mandarin, and a Wu dialect, as his standards for fluency have risen. In 2021, while recording his third LP Feuerschlucker as Vitriolic Sage, Liu considered experimenting with languages through metal. Following that thought, he established Ὁπλίτης. 

After moving to Paris in 2022 to study linguistics, he committed more time to finding novel ways to utilize ancient Greek for the operation. Language was not a means to an end; it was the end. It was only after he began the project that he realized it was a medium through which he could speak freely about society’s injustices, like those suffered by women in Xuzhou, China.

While Ὁπλίτης’s linguistic aspects are fascinating, they’re hardly what earned Liu recognition online. After all, nobody can understand what he’s singing. The music’s sheer ferocity is what resonated with new fans.

 Liu frankly described Ὁπλίτης as a riff laboratory, but that undersells how ballistic he is. His work is as mathcore as it is black metal, all the while brimming with hardcore punk’s insurgency. The one act that comes to mind while listening is Serpent Column, both for the white-hot intensity each group plays with and their high levels of productivity. However, Ὁπλίτης has much more bite and bone than the disbanded Serpent Column. While the latter often sounded like a phantom tearing its way into the physical realm, you can hear Ὁπλίτης’s muscles flex and tear due to the pellucid production. Liu has nothing to conceal. As such, Ὁπλίτης is unabashedly pulverizing. It’s either technically challenging or intentionally overloading your faculties. 

Liu spoke with us over Zoom about his interest in languages and offered insight into what value a dead language holds in the 21st century. In short, linguistics is as much about personal expression as it is about communication. In his own words, "I always think the opportunity to express myself is very precious.”

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You wrote and recorded Ἀ​ν​τ​ι​τ​ι​μ​ω​ρ​ο​υ​μ​έ​ν​η in five days; you’ve put out two other Ὁπλίτης albums, and you released a record as Vitriolic Sage—all within a single year. How have you been so productive this year?

It’s just me who’s working on it. There’s no team or cooperation, which may be because I’m quite introverted. It stems from some bad band experiences during my freshman year at a university in China. I was in a rock band, and we started by doing covers. They planned to play a show, but I turned it down because I had an important exam the next day. The other members weren’t happy, so the band ended. 

Afterward, I contacted people to play thrash or black metal, but there wasn’t anyone around. So, gradually, I began realizing that I shouldn’t collaborate with others. I should just create music on my own. It feels good to do that because I don’t have any disruptions. When you finish something, you don’t have to send it to others to ask what they think and then wait days for their reply. There’s no set process. It’s a magnification of oneself. You’re playing different roles, but there’s only you. That’s the most important aspect.

It also sounds like there weren’t a ton of people in your area who were interested in the metal you wanted to make. 

That’s true too. I’m from a small city in China, so it’s natural. I’m from Zhejiang province, and it’s funny ‘cause my city is the second-most avant-garde city in China, second only to Shanghai. Zhejiang is just next to it. The whole scene is kind of backwards, in a way, but in Chinese, we say, “Among all those bad peaches, there are always some that are a bit better.” Zhejiang is one of those peaches that are a bit better. 

How do you find writing in different languages, especially ancient Greek, affects the words and languages that you use?

That’s a big question. Hmmm. I’ve always said this to other people, but using ancient Greek is like doing an experiment. There are many experimental musicians. Some started playing noises while others started playing atonal stuff. I don't think there are musicians that approach it from a linguistic angle. Obviously, there is Magma, the progressive rock band from France. They started using artificial languages like Kobaïan, which is mainly constructed from Slavic and Germanic languages. 

My angle is bringing a dead language back because I think that’s interesting. But still, I'm not the first person to do that. There have been other people who have experimented with that. Plenty of black metal bands, like Mayhem, use Latin in their albums, though they’re all grammatically incorrect. Deathspell Omega did as well, but regarding them, I like a sentence I wrote in another interview about it: “Satan couldn’t understand your improper Latin.”

It seems that you work with dead languages such as ancient Greek to see how you can play around with it to sing about topics that would otherwise be difficult to sing about. 

One thing about these ancient Indo-European languages is that they have complex inflexional grammar. For example, φέρω (phérō) in ancient Greek means “to carry.” In the present tense, you say “I carry.” In the future tense, you'll get οἴσω(oísō), and in the past tense, ἤνεγκα(ēnenka) and ἐνήνοχα(enēnocha) in the perfect tense! The inflection changes to become almost new words. So it wouldn't surprise me if bands out there aren’t applying grammar perfectly to ancient languages. It’s natural. 

I always felt that if you showed my Ὁπλίτης lyrics to an ancient Greek native speaker, they’d feel that the sentences would be nearly perfectly written, but they wouldn’t sound natural. That happens quite a lot when you're learning foreign languages. You may notice when I speak English that I speak grammatically correct sentences, but it's not how a native speaker communicates. 

That's what I find interesting about languages. You can say something that’s perfect, grammatically speaking, but nobody would say it in real life.

So you can say that’s also a part of my experimentation with ancient Greek. It’s hard to say, but I am subconsciously imitating the ancient Greek authors that I’m into, like Euripides and Σαπφώ (Sapphō). I’m imitating their writing style, which guarantees that what I write will sound 98% perfect, to them. Assuming that you’re interested in languages, it’s funny. Ὁπλίτης started during the recording session of the third Vitriolic Sage album, but the motif stems from that intense ancient Greek learning session that I had. 

In another interview, you said Greek mythology doesn’t interest you, but the language does. Why’s that? 

Now, I’d say I’m more interested in other languages. But, and I’ve said that secretly to my classmates, I have this filter with ancient Greek language. Some people say that certain languages sound so beautiful to them, and I think that’s true for me. The mythology doesn’t interest me. The philosophical side, which is the most important side of ancient Greek study, has never interested me. I’ve always been anti-philosophy. I always frowned when someone started asking philosophical questions in my class. 

Some people ask the question of the verb “to be” and the meaning of “there is.” In ancient Indo-European languages like Latin, when you say “to be” it can mean “there is.” So, you no longer say there is a child; you say, “be a child,” which can mean the same thing. The philosophers started by interpreting the details of these words. But, to linguists, it’s just a verb usage. There are no philosophical connections. 

From that point of view, both my tutor and I are anti-philosophical. Philosophy and mythology don’t appeal to me that much. I’d rather stare at the language itself. So it’s not just ancient Greek anymore; there are other languages I’m interested in. My tutor and I are interested in native languages in the U.S. like Ojibwe and Cree. They don’t have as many written texts, so it becomes field work where a linguist stays there for a month or so, investigating the details and finding out the descriptions. That’s what interests me more, the descriptions of languages. 

I’m curious if you think there are any characteristics ancient Greek possesses that are good for metal. 

I didn’t start the project thinking about that, I started it out of an unconditional love for the language. I thought it was very funny to do so. It was fun for me. But, one thing I experimented with as the project continued was rhyming in ancient Greek, which the ancient Greeks did not do frequently. They are into hexameter stuff, which sounds sung or chanted. Ancient Greek’s word order is not as rigid as Chinese or English. You can make small changes to, not only make rhyming easier, but to add nuance.

It’s almost like the meme—It’s not that deep, bro. However, many of your albums, like Ἀ​ν​τ​ι​τ​ι​μ​ω​ρ​ο​υ​μ​έ​ν​η and Τ​ρ​ω​θ​η​σ​ο​μ​έ​ν​η, focus on women in China. It seems you have more freedom with what you can say because you’re singing in ancient Greek and therefore don’t have to worry about censorship. 

Definitely. Like, here’s a story. In September, I played a show in China with Sigh, Zuriaake, The Illusion of Dawn, and CUT. I didn’t know this, but in China, when you’re organizing a concert, you have to write and translate your lyrics and submit them to the cultural committee in the government. Nobody can understand my lyrics, but despite that, I still had to translate them, which is so fucking weird. 

On Τ​ρ​ω​θ​η​σ​ο​μ​έ​ν​η, the track “Θεῖα δεσμά“ means divine shackles, which is a direct reference to the chained woman in Xuzhou, China. The lyrics are blatantly insulting a leader in the country. There is a lyric that literally says, “He’s a piece of shit,” although it’s in ancient Greek and, funnily enough, that lyric rhymes well. Since it’s in ancient Greek, I still had to translate it. I obviously couldn’t write the original meaning, so I substituted topics for happiness and joy. They couldn't understand it anyway, which is so absurd. Nobody speaks ancient Greek. The translations aren’t useful, but they still need it. 

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Follow Ὁπλίτης on Bandcamp.