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Rotting Christ: Genesis
28/02/13 || BamaHammer
Obviously, Rotting Christ (band of teh brothers Tolis) is one band that a young man living in the ol’ Bible Belt of the ‘Merican South can’t publicly proclaim he enjoys. However, these Greek black metal granddaddies simply have an innate ability to deliver some catchy tunes with every album. While not as infamous or widely known as their Scandinavian counterparts, this is one quality fucken band that has been around for a long while.
The most noticeable aspect of Rotting Christ’s unique sound is what I have heard been described as a “pulse” which is a trademark of many Greek black metal bands. It’s formulated by the union of the bass and the drumming in such a way that the traditional blackened blastbeat is slowed just ever so slightly to allow the bass to mimic every kick. The result is just that—a pulse. Nothing they do can be described as truly fast or insanely heavy. It’s just Rotting Christ. And it’s catchy as hell.
On “Genesis”, the pulse is in high gear, and while the band has clearly integrated elements of gothic metal and some other shit into their sound, they sound quite dark and evil as a whole. The riffing of frontman Sakis Tolis and Costas Vassilakopoulos is an interesting concoction made up of simple palm-muted chunks occasionally mixed with weird squeals and whiny melodic parts. No riff from this album could ever be called brutal or even groovy, but for some reason, it all works so beautifully in conjunction with the pulse from the rhythm section. Vocally, Tolis offers up a variety of sounds, generating a standard raspy black metal growl that’s very clear and concise as well as occasional operatic clear vocal lines that sound similar to what you may hear from Samael during their “Eternal” and “Passage” era.
What makes this album really shine is the use of programming and keyboards. Whether the atmosphere calls for a background choir or a string orchestra or just an obscure synthetic sound to make you feel uneasy, the band finds a way to make it work within the music. Yes, I would say that the music is quite heavily orchestrated and laden with layers upon layers of keyboards, but it does nothing but improve the total package of what’s going on here.
This isn’t a band that everyone will like. They’re a little bit of an acquired taste. Sure, it’s black metal in a very loose sense, but they really are a very unique sounding band. If you’ve never heard Rotting Christ before, I would suggest “Genesis” as an excellent place to begin (pun intended).
- Information
- Released: 2002
- Label: Century Media
- Website: www.rotting-christ.com
- Band
- Sakis: vocals, guitars
- Andreas: bass
- Themis: drums
- Kostas: guitars
- George: keyboards
- Tracklist
- 01. Daemons
- 02. Lex Talionis
- 03. Quintessence
- 04. Nightmare
- 05. In Domine Sathana
- 06. Release Me
- 07. The Call of the Aethyrs
- 08. Dying
- 09. Ad Noctis
- 10. Under the Name of Legion
