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Rotting Christ - Rituals (2016) (Japan GQCS-90108)

Posted By: apocalipsys2014
Rotting Christ - Rituals (2016) (Japan GQCS-90108)

Rotting Christ - Rituals (2016)
Year & Label: 2016, Ward Records Inc., Japan | CD#: GQCS-90108
Flac (image) | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps | Artwork (JPG, 300 dpi) | File-hosts: Nitroflare.com
Black Metal | FLAC: 410 MB | Artwork: 50 MB | MP3: 130 MB | 5% WinRAR Recovery

EAC Secure-rip with LOG+CUE+COVERS | Source: eMule
Japanese edition with bonus track

I’m not sure what the editorial party line/standing policy is here at Metal Injection when it comes to explicit knowledge of the background of the bands we’re assigned to review. I'm not entirely sure that, if when reviewing particular records, whether I’m supposed to present as a sentinel-like authority on the history of the outfit sitting on the carving block or not. Hey, cut me some slack motherfuckers! I’ve only been contributing to the site for a year-and-a-half, why would you think the powers that be would all me to be privy to any of this behind-the-scenes stuff?

I mention this in part to be a wise-ass, but primarily to point out that when it comes to Greece’s Rotting Christ, I admittedly am really only a fan of their last handful of releases. Say from about Aealo forward. That’s not to say I have no familiarity with their back catalogue previous to that 2010 beaut, it’s just that what I have heard going back to their Leprosy of Death demo – and yes, I’m old and rickety enough to have heard Leprosy of Death the first time around – never really did much for me. Having spent some time spinning last year’s career-spanning, double disc live extravaganza, Lucifer Over Athens only cemented the fact that the days that receive worship from basement altars don’t connect with me as much as their more recent stadium rock shit does. Sue me my poser ass and talk shit about me on the internet, if you will, but if you’re expecting a grandiose analysis of Rotting Christ’s way begone past and how it compares to the present, you’re shit out of luck. My interest in these Grecian overlords has only been piqued in the last few years, my ears are happy to report.

Rituals, their twelfth full-length, continues in the vein of the sound explored since Aealo, only they’ve taken that blueprint and added a more ritualistic (ugh, sorry!) sensibility, a timbre of menace, a tone somewhere between celebratory triumph and distraught funereality all executed from the most echoey corners of the Coliseum or Parthenon or whatever ancient marvel of architecture and construction is decaying at the hand of modern society’s polluting hand and "shared retail/condo space" developments.

Slinky curtain raiser, “In Nomnie Dei Nostri” kicks off sounding like the listener stumbled into a cave where a black mass is being held as a combination of Greco-Anglo chanting and spoken word summoning of the Prince of Darkness diverges and converges with the martial precision, militaristic riffing and lockstep drumming underneath it. The aura is one of tarnished souls, happy in their stead, making the most of the power bestowed upon them by history, solemnity and Mercyful Fate’s “Evil” to celebrate extinguished life and love via the medium of song. That these hymns come crashing at the confluence of a soundtrack for the future of space travel, picnics in Hades, angelic grandiosity, hypnotic tribalism and bombastic cock rock makes for an experience that’s almost as aching in its pretension as majestic in its sonic scope.

You can picture guitarist/vocalist Sakis Tolis standing atop Mount Olympus, his hair (both head and chest) cascading in the breeze as drooling demons battle dudes with obscenely large pecs and larger swords beneath him in a lake of fire and loincloths in “Ze Nigmar.” “Elthe Kyrie” imagines a primitive tribe speaking in tongues as they discover Neurosis' Souls at Zero and keyboard samplers, the bombast created by the waves and washes of reverb and chorus making the relative straight forward rhythmic ease that much more powerful. Then there’s “Komx Om Pax” in which early Celtic Frost grinds on 1985's gearshift. The impact created by the blackened power metal and high forehead chants of “Les Litanies de Satan (Les Fleurs du Mal)” generate an atmosphere that recalls a torture chamber in the king’s palace, witches burning in Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory and the hum of a battle in the distance. The pacing and dynamics coalesce to make the song, and in turn Rituals as a whole, an intriguing listen, even if the underlying drone sometimes borders on bagpipe-like and could be construed as a lessening of the intensity.

In the eyes of the older traditionalist with a stunted view of musical growth and refusal to accept change, the Rotting Christ of today may pale in comparison to their origins. But as bombastic and pompous as the changes they've made may be, the truth of the matter is that what the Tolis brothers (Themis on drums), guitarist George Emmanuel and bassist Vagelis Karzis have stumbled upon and creatively executed is as singular and unique a contribution to the development of metal as anything on the table. The move from kids playing primordial and primitive blackened grind by any means necessary to characters verging on larger-than-life cranking out streamlined hits of arena sized black metal riffs backed by ancient sounds and instrumentation is wholly their own.

Of course, we’re not naive enough to assume the sounds comprising Rituals materialized from thin air; there are likely more than a few Greek folk musicians flagging down lawyers and hoping for publishing residuals, and Danai Katsameni ought to take Diamanda Galas out for lunch as a thank you (Paradise Lost’s Nick Holmes, Rudra’s Kathir, Samael’s Vorph and George Zacharopolus of Necromantia/Thou Art Lord fame, all who contributed backing vocals, also might want to chip in on the bill, but that’s another story altogether and speaks to Galas’ talent and range more than anything), but if there’s a band picking metal up by the scruff of its dress shirt collars and suit jacket lapels and bringing metal kicking and screaming into the future in their own way, it’s Rotting Christ.

www.metal-archives.com
Musicians:
Guitars, Vocals, Bass : Sakis Tolis
Drums : Themis Tolis

Recorded at Devasounds studios, Athens, Greece.
Mixed and mastered at Fascination Street Studios, Örebro, Sweden.

Track List:

01. In Nomine Dei Nostri (In the Name of Our God) [4:58]
02. זה נגמר (It's Over) [4:43]
03. Ἐλθὲ κύριε (Come Lord ) [4:50]
04. Les Litanies Du Satan (The Flowers of Evil) [3:55]
05. Ἄπαγε Σατανά (Begone, Satan) [3:50]
06. Του θάνατου ( Death's ) [3:38]
07. For A Voice Like Thunder [6:12]
08. Konx Om Pax (Light rushing out in a single ray) [6:22]
09. Devadevam (देवदेवं) (God of Gods) [5:18]
10. The Four Horsemen (Aphrodite's Child Cover) [5:24]
11. Lok'tar Ogar (Bonus Track) [4:26]

Exact Audio Copy V1.1 from 23. June 2015

EAC extraction logfile from 25. February 2016, 20:04

Rotting Christ / Rituals

Used drive : ATAPI iHAS122 W Adapter: 2 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\FLAC\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -V -8 -T "Date=%year%" -T "Genre=%genre%" -T"COMMENT=Ripped by Ilijan" -8 -V %source%


TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 4:57.46 | 0 | 22320
2 | 4:57.46 | 4:43.29 | 22321 | 43574
3 | 9:41.00 | 4:49.56 | 43575 | 65305
4 | 14:30.56 | 3:55.33 | 65306 | 82963
5 | 18:26.14 | 3:50.25 | 82964 | 100238
6 | 22:16.39 | 3:37.64 | 100239 | 116577
7 | 25:54.28 | 6:11.67 | 116578 | 144469
8 | 32:06.20 | 6:21.54 | 144470 | 173098
9 | 38:27.74 | 5:18.18 | 173099 | 196966
10 | 43:46.17 | 5:24.04 | 196967 | 221270
11 | 49:10.21 | 4:25.48 | 221271 | 241193


Range status and errors

Selected range

Filename D:\ilко\Rotting Christ - Rituals.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Extraction speed 4.0 X
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 9D22C807
Copy CRC 9D22C807
Copy OK

No errors occurred


AccurateRip summary

Track 1 not present in database
Track 2 not present in database
Track 3 not present in database
Track 4 not present in database
Track 5 not present in database
Track 6 not present in database
Track 7 not present in database
Track 8 not present in database
Track 9 not present in database
Track 10 not present in database
Track 11 not present in database

None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database

End of status report

–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.6

[CTDB TOCID: gn0GnKcO6QiwSqRQb2M6YXciwcw-] found
Submit result: gn0GnKcO6QiwSqRQb2M6YXciwcw- has been confirmed
Track | CTDB Status
1 | (2/2) Accurately ripped
2 | (2/2) Accurately ripped
3 | (2/2) Accurately ripped
4 | (2/2) Accurately ripped
5 | (2/2) Accurately ripped
6 | (2/2) Accurately ripped
7 | (2/2) Accurately ripped
8 | (2/2) Accurately ripped
9 | (2/2) Accurately ripped
10 | (2/2) Accurately ripped
11 | (2/2) Accurately ripped


==== Log checksum 354317BC202E7627B40F6E8BCEF30C115A546799A3D631521BA569B52B906ABC ====

Not my rip, not my scan-job. Thx very much to the original uploader Ilijan [MMT]!
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