The voice of Voodoo Kungfu

For nearly two hours, lead singer Li Nan did not say a word. Bare-chested and drenched in fake blood, he and members of Chinese metal quartet Voodoo Kungfu (VK) delivered a silent farewell performance at Mao Livehouse to a packed house on Sunday night, each chatter-free break between songs adding theatrical tension. Li even managed to maintain his vow of silence as a tattoo artist inked the number of ticket holders on his inner bottom lip, on stage.

Although Li spared the small talk, he did a lot of screaming. The 32-year-old frontman flexed his famous pectorals and showcased his vocal range, which is capable of going from a devilish whisper to an angelic falsetto. It is this gift which has brought about the band's retirement. Earlier this year, Li sang his way to a four-year scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, beginning this August.　

Pacing up and downstage like a caged animal, Li opened the concert with the song which he sang during his Berklee audition, Ci An. The song, featuring a mournful mongolian horsehead fiddle followed by an onslaught of churning metal and ear-splitting screams, is an artful representative of VK's style; Chinese folk traditions and progressive metal with cinematic flair that Li touts as "Dark Age Metal."

Singing a healthy cross-section from their nine-year career, including their moving original covers of "Get Up, Stand Up" by Bob Marley and the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams," the band generated a mosh pit that rarely ceased churning as crowd surfers flung wads of "ghost money" in the air.　

The band has paired down over the years, replacing extra percussion and horsehead fiddles with pre-recorded segments run out of a Macbook Pro. Although practical, this one decision proved a sticking point and seemed to repeatedly break the magic, reminding the audience they are watching a production rather than a seamless sonic experience.　

Li and VK will be remembered as the band whose singer tattooed the attendance of their last concert on his lip (which was 558), and as true originals; artists producing a sound that could only have been spawned in China. Not only will Beijing be losing a talented son for the next four years, but also the only lead singer that makes this reporter swear he's heading into the gym the next day.