If the belief that tough socio-economic and political conditions breeds increasingly emotive music holds true, the time is never better for Greece to blast out some top-quality extreme music. The economy has been shredded and the suits are attempting to forcibly dump austerity measures onto already suffering citizens.
It’s surprising that the nation hasn’t gone up in a powder keg and that Rotting Christ don’t sound as disgusted and incendiary as logic dictates they should. Kata Ton Daimona Eaytoy doesn’t hark back to their self-mutilating black/grind days, instead continuing on with the epic and atmospheric moves first made on 2007’s Theogonia.
Grandis Spiritus Diavolos may bite off Sabbath’s Supernaut and Cine Iubeste Eaftou churns at a snail’s pace, but the remainder hails from a place of experience and maturity where traditional instruments and musical elements find happy homes enmeshed within minor pentatonic riffs and uppity tempos, as in the title track. Sometimes RC are too eager to cull and use non-metal, sometimes diluting the focus. Otherwise, it’s ironic that something as dark as their 11th full-length is probably the brightest thing to emerge from Greece this decade.
