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This is the debut album of Rotting Christ and probably the most important of their career, but also of the most important ones of the whole second generation of black metal in general. After releasing various demos and 7” vinyls even from 1988, they managed to get a contract with Osmose company. The result was this album, a piece that actually set the standards for the whole greek black metal scene which brought up some very good acts during the following years. The album opens with “The Sign Of Evil Existence”, an all-time classic 2 minutes short and fast track, but still a small dose of what was about to follow within the next 45 minutes of the album’s duration. The big surprise actually comes with the next two songs, “Transform All Suffering Into Plagues” and “Fgmenth, Thy Gift”, where one can hear amazing riffs and constructions, all done with plenty of honesty, passion and a very bold underground feeling. The same goes for the rest of the album as well and especially for marvelous songs such as “His Sleeping Majesty” and “The Coronation Of The Serpent”, with incredibly interesting cuts and changes in the songs, very intelligent arrangements and performance. It would really be unfair to select for mentioning some tracks off the record, since all of them have their important equal value in it. Rotting Christ even from their demos easily formed a very personal and absolutely unique sound through which they presented some great black metal albums and especially their legendary debut, “Thy Mighty Contract”. Don’t expect from Rotting Christ to hear any extreme blastbeats or keyboards made-in-Norway style and I think that exactly this is the ace in their sleeve, their successful pioneering concerning the black metal sound.
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KJP / September 2003 |
