Saturday, April 12, 2008

Best of 2007 - #4


4. rotting christ - 'theogonia'
This is it - this is the album that Rotting Christ have been hinting at for over a decade and a half. Although they are already part of extreme metal's history, with their historial (and very important for their time) first albums, most notably 'Non Serviam', way back from 1994 (this is how we music geeks notice that we're getting old!). However, the development of their career has seen them waver unstably between their mediterranean metal style (an expression which I don't really like, but it fits as a description somehow) and a mid-90s Century Media-style dark metal, with some good and some less good results. Even in the less inspired albums, though, there has always been something noteworthy, a couple of songs that have made us all wish that they would always be like that. 'Theogonia' marks Rotting Christ's 20th anniversary, and as a celebration, no fan could have wished for more. Sakis has revealed how grueling the preparation for this album has been, with over a year of writing, and it shows. Much like Primordial, funnily enough right down here in the list, 'Theogonia's songs are immense, broad in scope, but not as tormented as Primordial's - here, it's as if you were overseeing a vast green plain, while riding your horse. On the plain, however, there are also armies of evil monsters, because every song has, besides the epic feel, also a very vicious streak, with probably the nastiest riffs since that 'Non Serviam' landmark. Right from the pounding, catchy opener 'Sign Of Prime Creation', the whole album is just addictive. Sakis' deep but raspy growl has never sounded better or fuller, and the songs are so well crafted that a tribal call to arms like 'Nemecic' doesn't need more than 4 minutes and a bit to feel like a 15-minute opus. Like Nile, for instance, it's the way they weave everything into the very body of the songs themselves - there's no need of sword fight samples to make a song feel warlike, there's no need of ethnical instrumentation to give it that Eastern feel, there's no need of warriors' chants or operatics to give the songs a fanfare, boastful atmosphere. All you need is the music itself to make you feel that. They haven't lost their demonic streak either, just check out the short and furious 'Rege Diabolicus' for proof of that. Varied, exciting, rousing, inspiring and totally killer from start to finish - 'Theogonia' deserves the highest praise and demands that Rotting Christ be taken into consideration on the upper echelons of extreme music. Brilliant stuff.

Rotting Christ - 'Nemecic'

1 comment:

  1. Dude, I like metal and have no problem with it, but one thing I don't like is band with a name like that! what's the need to call their band "Rotting Christ"? No need. It's disrespectful.

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