vote
6.5
- Bands:
ROTTING CHRIST - Duration: 00:46:05
- Available from: 05/24/2024
- Label:
-
Season Of Mist
Streaming not yet available
Thirty-five years of career and, it must be said, feeling them all: Rotting Christ have gone through countless decades proudly carrying the Hellenic banner of the blackest flame, yet for a few years now the signs of a certain underlying tiredness appear more evident , especially on his lider maximo Sakis Tolis.
A cycle of new albums (solo and otherwise) and continuous tours around the world are certainly a sign of commendable energy and dedication, yet they have their own specific weight in a musician’s energy economy; and if “Rituals” first, and above all “The Heretics” then unfortunately showed the evidence, this new “ΠΡΟ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ” – sixth album to seal a lasting agreement with the French Season of Mist – certainly does not lift the general panorama of the Greek group, but at least it seems slightly less ‘tarnished’ than its predecessor.
In analyzing the three quarters of an hour of music, it appears more and more evident that, tired or not, Rotting Christ have consciously chosen to move, over the years, their way of understanding and playing black metal in an increasingly cinematic and epic, relegating what remains of them in terms of vile, sulphurous, old-school Luciferian virulence to career celebrations.
This course, which in perspective we can see as starting at least from “Aealo” onwards, brings with it a greater cleanliness and bombast in the production and sounds: from the twilight “The Aposthate”, with its litanic, cadenced pace and the choruses to raise a compact wall of guitars, bass and drums, until the final “Saoirse”, each of the ten pieces interprets, in intention, the glorious power of pagan kings and kingdoms before the advent of Christian domination (the very title of the album , translated, actually means “before Christ”); deeds and ideals of the past are therefore celebrated with a great flow of muscular riffs – and whose focus is more on compactness than speed – and belligerent drum patterns, curated by a Themis Tolis in this sense always on the piece, perhaps sometimes accompanied by episodes, like “Like Father Like Son” less ‘fists on the chest’ and more son-like than what was produced, for better or for worse, by Sakis in the solo version.
Even the singing increasingly settles in baritone tones (when not declamatory), reducing screaming to the bare minimum – and if we think about how live our band sounds we can well imagine how this too, in addition to the ‘handclapping and stadium chanting’ moments, can be seen in the perspective of that economy of resources mentioned before, without taking into account, at this juncture, the contribution/live support of Kostas Heliotis (bass) and Kostis Foukarakis (second guitar).
The melodies, obviously, are always present, but they too appear slowed down and darker, perhaps in an attempt to fish out some suggestions (“The Farewell”) from the so-called ‘gothic phase’ of their career, bringing back some fragrances of “Sleep Of Angels” or “A Dead Poem” without however being able to replicate their intensity or inspiration, as those records were still children of a specific historical period for metal music. Alongside these, we also find the melodic taste most rooted in our homeland: in particular, we invite you to listen to “Pix Lax Dax”, which replicates the refrain of “The Aposthate” filtering it with the ethnic hints that made it time “Aealo” a gem, or “The Sixth Day”, in which we instead find solutions that are closer (but obviously not equaled) to the equally beautiful “Theogonia”.
And if “La Lettera Del Diavolo” seeks the drama of Diamanda Galas, resulting perhaps the most particular piece of the album, “Pretty World, Pretty Dies” instead falls back into the abyss of the self-quotation recycling of riffs and solos that had infested the previous two works of the Greek combo, perhaps not so evident here but still present.
In conclusion, if you ask us whether this album is good or not, our answer is: if you have known or appreciated Rotting Christ as they have become in the last ten years, you will probably like “ΠΡΟ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ” as much as “Κατά τον δαίμονα εαυτού ”, so please add half a vote to the one below.
If, on the other hand, this last, long phase hasn’t impressed you, go back and listen to “Non Serviam”, “Thy Mighty Contract” or “Thriarchy Of The Lost Lovers” if you really want Rotting Christ (or turn towards the Varathron side of the sector for less dated music): they were certainly filthier in sound and essential in substance, but it is in them that we see the full realization of that biting blasphemy contained in the name that made them great – here really very, very diluted, if not absent of the All.
