Review: Rotting Christ - Rituals

Rotting Christ has been in the business since 1987 and is an extreme metal institution. The greek band released a magnificent 6 LP live album with "Lucifer over Athens" last year so the expectations for Rituals are very high.

Quick Facts:

• Artist: Rotting Christ
• Album: Rituals
• Version: 2LP, black, 45rpm, limited to 750 copies - Discogs Link
• Label: Season of Mist
• Found at: jpc.de

Rotting Christ recorded Rituals as DevaSoundz Studios in Athens, a small studio specializing in extreme music. Rituals is their second album recorded at DevaSoundz after Κατά Τον Δαίμονα Εαυτού. Septic Flesh (Titan) and oriental black metal band Melechesch (Enki) are among the other bands who used this studio in the past for parts of their album releases. Mastering took place at Jens Bogren's Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden, an institution in the rock/metal world. Among their customers are greats like Dark Tranquillity, Arch Enemy, Paradise Lost, Opeth and many more. So it can be expected that the mastering is great. The vinyl was pressed by the usual suspect, Optimal Media Gmbh.

Track list:
01 - In Nomine Dei Nostri
02 - Ze Nigar
03 - Elthe Kyrie
04 - Apage Satana
05 - Les Litanies de Satan (Les Fleurs du mal)
06 - For a voice like Thunder
07 - Konx om pax
08 - Devadevam
09 - Tou Thanatou
10 - The four Horsemen
11 - Lok'tag Ogar

Gatefold/Cover Art/Record
The Cover was shot by photographer Ester Segarra who is known for her industrial/music photography. She has worked with Electric Wizard, Watain or Paradise Lost in the past. You can check out her work at e-segarra.com. The gatefold is pretty thick and the overall quality is again very good. The inner folding is raised a bit so it is pretty much impossible for the record sleeves to get stuck in there. On the inner gatefold you find the lyrics on the left side. Unfortunately the font is not perfect as some are quite hard to read. Furthermore they (obviously) included  the greek lyrics for songs like "Thou Thanatou". The right part of the inner gatefold consists of two thirds artwork and one third thank you notes. The back contains the tracklist. While the cover is exclusively using black and white colors and the inner gatefold only adds some sublte darker red, the tracklist on the back uses a very dark grey for the album sides (very hard to read) and shiny red for the tracks. The effect may be appealing to some, but it seems very misplaced. The record itself is plain black with a black/red sticker. Once again Rotting Christ manages to release a high quality gatefold.

The music:
The sound quality is once again amazing - nothing else to say about this.

It's no coincidence that the thank you notes take up so mach space on the gatefold on this 45rpm record. Rotting Christ worked with a lot of guest musicians on this album. Ranging from orchestral background to bagpipes, guitar solo and vocals by well known musicians Vorph (Samael) or Nick Holmes (Paradise Lost). The guest parts seem well placed and take nothing away from the usual Rotting Christ sound. Guest vocalists often provide only additional vocals (In nomine dei nostri, Elthe Kyrie, Devadevam) or recitations (For a voice like thunder). Only on Les litanies de satan Vorph of Samael takes over. The different songs are are rich in variety and thus create a fantastic listening experience. You might have to listen to this album a couple of times to finally discover and appreciate all the nuances. Despite all the variety, it does not feel like random songs strung together.

Conclusion - tl:dr:
Rotting Christ's 2LP version of Rituals stands out because of the high quality gatefold and amazing sound quality. A worthy successor for "Lucifer over Athens". 9/10 - Heavily recommended.

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