Review: Rotting Christ — Pro Xristou

Introduction

Rotting Christ, if you don’t know this band, you have been living under a rock for at least 30 years. This band doesn’t need any introduction to be honest, but here we are. The band is back with a new album titled Pro Xristou. It’s been almost 5 years since their latest full album The Heritics but in that time they released some live albums and a few compilations.

The band is also still going strong with performing concerts, and that, for me, is where this band really shines. I’ve been listening to Rotting Christ since ’94 and in that time the music changed, but their live shows (saw them live for the first time in 2006 if I recall correctly) are astonishing and the energy there is just something you’ll have to experience for yourself.

Lucky for you, there will be a new tour with Rotting Christ as the headliner (with Borknagar and Seth as support). So if you have time and the opportunity to go, just go and experience it for yourself, you won’t be disappointed, I’m sure about that. The new tour, of course, will be centred around the new album, so let’s dive into it.

Pro Xristou

So you bought the new Rotting Christ, and you know what to expect, well sort of, the last few albums have a certain sound to them; that goes as well for this latest work from the greek legends. The moment you hit play on your device, you hear a sound that’s very familiar.

It starts off with the first song on the album Pro Xristou which is more like a summoning. And what they do is summon a lot of the older gods, like Hades, Ra, and Asmodeus. It’s a good start, and it fades into the second track of the album, The Apostate, and this song sounds very familiar, but I’ll get to that.

One of my favorite songs of the album is the third track Like Father, Like Son, the vocals are spot on (as always, to be honest, not the same as it used to be, but still great). And by hearing the lyrics, you just know this will be sung alone very loudly at their concerts. It all merges very well, and it’s a great song overall.

Pride and honor – Passion, love, and faith
Belief to your own spirit – This is your father’s saying
Spread your wings and fly – Fly to the edge of a dream
Be yourself and rise – Rise, reborn, and scream

Lyrics from Like Father, Like Son

Another song I truly enjoyed on this album is the fifth track La Lettera del Diavolo (The Devil’s Letters) from the first note this song sounds more the older Rotting Christ songs. It starts off fast-paced, and it transforms into a bombastic song. The vocals by Amdroniki Skoula complete the track. This is what Rotting Christ is all about if you ask me.

So far, you would think, well, this is the best album they made, but sadly that’s not the case. Even with those songs, the rest of the album is, in my opinion, tame. Sakis vocals are still great, even though they are not the same as the olden days (which is to be expected, of course). But if you listen to the album a few times, you get the feeling that it’s okay, but nothing more than that.

One other thing I want to mention that’s a let-down for me is the copying of riffs, there are plenty of sections on the album that sound very familiar. For example, the Apostate, the intro sounds very similar to Dies Irae. And that goes for more songs. A lot of the riffs used are from Sakis solo album it seems and are almost an exact copy. For example, the riff on The Sixth Day is very similar to that of My Salvation. The guitar part of the verse of Pix Lax Dax is a somewhat replica of The Dawn of a New Age, but just played a bit slower. Is this a bad thing? Depends, but it doesn’t show a lot of creativity if you re-use riffs from previous albums, in my opinion.

I understand that the younger or newer fans will love this album because it’s more a continuation of the sound they have produced since Κατά τον δαίμονα εαυτού (which is a far better album). But for the older fans or the fans that like the older albums over the newer ones, it all sounds very tame. That older sound does show up on the album, like on the fifth track mentioned above, but that’s also the case for the ninth track, Yggdrasil. The drums on that track are just hypnotic and combined with the chanting like vocals makes for a great Rotting Christ track.

Conclusion

So if you read the above, I get that gives off a bit of mixed signals, is it a good album or is it not? We can make that answer as complicated as we want it to be, yes it’s good, but just above average. It’s not a great album and for me and that’s mainly because, overall, the album just feels tame. Yes, it has some great songs on it that remind me of the older Rotting Christ, but that’s about it.

So how would I rate this latest album? That’s a tough one. I love Rotting Christ, and it’s difficult to grade them, but as said above, this album is nothing more than above average. So that would be the rating I give.

BMZ Score: 6 – Above Average: This album shows promise with several standout moments. It shines in places, either through memorable tracks or other unique aspects like vocals, drums etc.

Your thoughts on: Rotting Christ — Pro Xristou

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