### Rotting Christ: Sanctus diavolos

#### 25/11/04 || Lord K Philipson

A good bandname isn’t something that necessarily equals a good band, if anyone ever thought that. Rotting Christ is a damn fine moniker for a group, if you ask me. And if you have a name like this it should mean you play brutal fucken death metal, dontcha think? Of course you do. Rotting Christ from Greece ain’t nothing even remotely close to death metal. Unfortunately. The press-sheet claims them to be “legendary”. For what exactly? Being around since 1987? That doesn’t make a band legendary. That makes the band fucken old, but not necessarily “legendary”. Legendary bands usually have a lot of listeners I’ve been told. How many friends do I have who listen to these legends then? I know exactly… lemme see here… none, zip, cock, zero, squat, sumo, grus, Leif.

Do you?

I thought not.

There’s nothing majorly wrong with what Rotting Christ (except for having that name and not playing death metal) throws up musically. Or actually… When I do think about it, Rotting Christ is a quite boring band. Brutality? Nope. Heaviness? Guess again. Atmospheric? Most of the time they try to be. Let’s not forget the male and female operatic backing vocals. Think choirs in the vein of the classic tune “Carmina Burana”, used to add some “evil” to their sound, and you are getting closer to what I’m aiming for, whatever that is. Rotting Christ definitely heard Therion at one point or other, and decided they didn’t want to be a mere clone of them so why not include some semi-black metalish riffs to spice shit up? That’s exactly what they did, in case I forgot to mention that. This small black metal influence does them good, but it doesn’t help the overall concept of Rotting Christ, coz what we end up listening to is a CD full of different styles and ideas, though not executed particulary well.

I’m no enemy of keyboards and weird sounds, to no one’s suprise, but the material comes down to sounding pretty confused, as if the guys are not completely sure what style to concentrate on. One minute it’s some half-brutal black metal with a lot of keyboards backing it up, the next they transform into some cheesy avant garde bullshit. But let’s not forget that a few chuggah-chuggah riffs get thrown in as well, just becoz those are needed for added effect you know.

I hear quite a bit of Samael at times (“Serve in Heaven”, “Doctrine” to name a few examples) in Rotting Christ, which is nothing but a good thing. RC’s nothing close to as catchy as the Swiss dudes though, but they share some similar ideas here and there.

The first track (I always spin new albums on random as I don’t wanna know which song is the opener, as bands always open with the best shit) I ever heard by these guys was “Shades of Evil”. It holds a good groove and definitely gets my vote for the “strongest song on the album”. “Thy Wings, Thy Horns, Thy Sin” displays a very wicked intro riff to which I nod my cock likingly (is that a word, Tash?), I only wish the rest of the song would answer to the standard set up by the afore-mentioned riff but it doesn’t. Pretty much as with everything else on this album. There are parts that are kinda groovy and sing-along-ish, but somewhere along the line it all gets fucked up and we are stuck with another track of “What? Come again?”.

The album is gifted with a pretty poor production which is not exactly helping these guys out either. There are no dynamics, no heaviness and no balls. It doesn’t matter that Rotting Christ sound original for most parts, original doesn’t equal excellent you know. It’s well executed with some sweet choirs and electronics on top of the semi-heavy shit, but it’s not enough for me.

I don’t care about the fact I gave RC a 6 in the Audio Autopsy section for October, I’m forced to lower it this time around. Just becoz I feel like it and becoz I can.

5 tourist resorts out of 10.

Nope, no matter how “legendary” you guys are, I’m not sending any fanmail just yet.

- Information
- Released: 2004
- Label: Century Media
- Website: www.rotting-christ.com
- Band
- Sakis: vocals, guitars
- Andreas: bass
- Themis: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Visions Of A Blind Order
- 02. Thy Wings Thy Horns Thy Sin
- 03. Athanatoi Este
- 04. Tyrannical
- 05. You My Cross
- 06. Sanctimonius
- 07. Serve In Heaven
- 08. Shades Of Evil
- 09. Doctrine
- 10. Sanctus Diavolos