Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 01/24/2006
Few people realize that Greece's
Rotting Christ were a
grindcore band when they first started out in 1988, but then that's not surprising since the group's first widely distributed recordings from four years later, the
Passage to Arcturo EP, already found them splitting the stylistic differences between black and
death metal almost right down the middle. In fact, opening number
"The Old Coffin Spirit" (and you can bet
King Diamond wishes he'd thought up that song title) probably offers the most simplified blueprint imaginable for the band's eventual signature sound, later expanded and refined for years and years to come; and its follow-up,
"The Forest of N'Gai," likewise introduces rudimentary, but already very effective, synthesizers made to sound like ghostly vocal falsettos -- or is it the other way around? In any case, this willingness to experiment is continually reflected in the EP's remaining songs. It's in the
gothic-tinged doom of
"The Mystical Meeting" (where deadpan narrations reflect the influence of future labelmates
Tiamat), the atmospheric piano interlude,
"Gloria de Domino Inferni," and the marriage of
death metal and early
Sepultura post-
thrash of
"Inside the Eye of Algond." In sum,
Passage to Arcturo is a surprisingly well-rendered and prophetic glimpse of
Rotting Christ's future ambitions. [Reissued in 2005 by
Unruly Sounds,
Passage to Arcturo was augmented by two, far more crude
black metal-focused tracks from the
"Dawn of the Iconoclast" 7" (making a clear case as to why that
Vulcano-like style was quickly abandoned by the group), and a true find in the also
gothic and doom-slow 1989 demo entitled
"Feast of the Grand Whore."]
~Eduardo Rivadavia, All Music Guide
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