Primary Emotions/Themes: Satan, truth through self reflection, power through self
Thoughts: With a name like Rotting Christ you would expect some of the most vile and extreme music on the planet. Well maybe with the band's early stuff that may have been true but as time went on they incorporated more gothic elements. This resulted in a gradual mellowing of their sound to the point where The Sleep of Angels was unrecognizable from the early material.
I've previously documented that I've had a hard time getting into the band's early works. This includes A Dead Poem and the aforementioned Sleep of Angels. Khronos is where the band's discography truly begins for me.
This was where the band took the gothic influences that were dominating the sound at the time and took a look into the past. They incorporated some of the early extreme metal back into the sound and started into a direction that would become uniquely Rotting Christ from this moment forward.
Khronos starts off with a bang... Thou Art Blind has one of the most aggressive riffs that the band had written in years. This combined with a blast beat immediately separates Khronos from the previous few albums. It's aggressive, it's atmospheric, and most importantly it sounds damn good.
The album continues with two of the best songs that Rotting Christ have ever penned. If It Ends Tomorrow and My Sacred Path manage to combine melody, extreme metal, gothic metal, and clever song writing in a rare and wonderful way.
If it Ends Tomorrow's opening riff introduces the main idea of the song with an instantly recognizable riff that will be the driving force thorough he five minute run time. What really separates this song out though is the atmosphere. It has a sense of mystery, urgency, exploration and discovery that blend together to create a song that I want on repeat for hours on end. The inclusion of brief clean vocals during the chorus just drive the song over the top. Easily one of the best songs the band has ever created.
My Sacred Path continues in nearly the exact same vein. The song is a bit faster and aggressive, but the same atmosphere is there from the previous song. This combined with infectious melodies that get stuck in my head for days at a time is a recipe for a 10/10 song.
After these two songs the album takes an understandable dip in quality. You can't have an album that is completely flawless from start to finish in most cases. While the following songs are still very much in touch with the same atmosphere of discovery and mystery, they can't tap into that same infectious groove that the first few songs can.
The inclusion of a Current 93 cover is a great nod to another fantastic project. The song takes the experimental nature of Current 93 and morphs it into Rotting Christs blooming sound. It's not perfect but I love it when band's make a cover their own, and Rotting Christ certainly do that here.
Khronos is the true start of Rotting Christ's sound. This is where they melded the experimentation of the gothic elements with their roots. They would perfect this sound over the next few albums and create some of the best metal that the decade saw in that process.
Written October 25th 2023
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