Rotting Christ- Rituals (2016)

Rotting Christ- Rituals (2016)

By: Ghost Writer

With a name that really scares the shit out of people like born again Christian Dave Mustaine, and many others when I was much younger and I had a black shirt with their name on it, apart from economist turned activist renegade Yanis Varoufakis, and radical left winger and awful negotiator Alexis Tsipras, Rotting Christ might surely be one of the best recognized characters coming from the historically rich Helenic country, where the whole western culture was born, and where it almost came to an economic end, or at least the European Union, a couple of years ago.

Rotting Christ is a metal living legend, a band with almost three decades of existence, starting as one of the first black metal band in that region of Europe, and then quickly evolving into something else, a band whose name was a synonym of something really cool, musical speaking, going on, and up to these days, these scary guys continue with their menacing act, delivering this year this powerful Rituals, a record that could have served as a great soundtrack for that Frank Miller comic and later a movie called 300, I bet Leonidas and company should have been better accompanied and motivated, by listening to the demons invoked by this band, in their mission to fight the Persian Army at the Thermopiles rather than being backed by that puny guy Zeus, consider the martial quasi industrial roar of opening song In Nomine Dei Nostri as a near perfect soundtrack.

But as seasoned veterans, RS don't let themselves go with the prototypical blast beats most extreme metal bands go, they leave enough room for experimentation and atmospherics like on the slow grind of Ze Nigmar, featuring soaring epic vocals and lots of Gothic overtones between the hazy darkness, but wait until you hear the intense attack on Elthe Kyrie, one of the record's definite highlights with the band at full speed and with totally maniac female vocals, by guest vocalist Danai.

The band quickly comes back to the industrial influences displayed early on the record, and the parade of guest characters continues this time with Vorph, singer for the equally brutal avant garde black metal Swiss legends Samael, on the brutally intense discharge of Les Litanies De Satan, featuring guitars so abrasive that could tear apart the flesh from a body, if someone thinks that leaving their black metal roots meant that RS is mellowing, think it twice!.

Rituals is another powerful showing from one of the all times best Greek extreme metal institution, a fearless band that keeps making great music year after year, slowly becoming a name that although creates controversy, it also creates enthusiasm for the future of the genre, putting intelligent evolving music record after record, and for a country like Greece once in the spotlight for troubled politics and economics, a genuine reason to be very proud of.